The LAMB Devours the Oscars - Best Picture: True Grit
Editor’s note: Welcome to the twenty-third of a 33-part series dissecting the 83rd Academy Awards, brought to you by the Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every day leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB will be published, each covering a different category of the Oscars. To read any other posts regarding this event, please click the tag following the post. Thank you, and enjoy!
By Clarabela from Just Chick Flicks
Known for movies featuring quirky, off-beat characters and botched crimes, the writing, producing and directing team, Joel and Ethan Coen are no stranger to the Oscars. With multiple nominations for Best Screenplay, Directing they finally won a Best Picture Oscar in 2009 for No Country For Old Men. Working again with Big Lewbowski star, Jeff Bridges the Coen’s take on a new genre, the American Western with True Grit. Unlike the 1969 John Wayne movie, the Coens’ True Grit closely follows the original Charles Portis novel, which focuses on the coming of age story of young Mattie Ross.
True Grill tells the story of Mattie Ross, a girl from Yell County, who due to hard circumstances is forced to grow up beyond her 14 years. Mattie arrives in town to handle the affairs of her murdered father. The plain-talking, serious young girl wants justice for her father’s murder. Mattie hears of the reputation of Marshal Rooster Cogburn for having ‘grit’ and she hires him to track down and capture Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father.
Reuben (Rooster) Cogburn is a tough, unapologetically violent man who often shoots first and sorts out the details later. Tom Chaney is also a wanted man for the murder of a Texas politician and is pursued by a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf. Played with a snarky attitude, Matt Damon’s pompous Texan is a great comic antagonist for the cantankerous Marshall Cogburn. The two men join forces in their pursuit of Chaney, leaving Mattie behind.
Not willing to trust the drunken, slothful Cogburn, a fiercely determined Mattie follows Cogburn and LaBoeuf to make sure he does the job properly. Mattie, Rooster and La Boeuf set off on the trail of Tom Chaney, encountering dangers from man, beast and nature. Along the way, each one is tested and discovers the meaning of having ‘true grit’. Like most of the Coen’s movies, True Grit is set in a world all its own. It is a harsh, gritty and bleak old west with hard-faced, dirty people who speak in a plain straight-forward, contraction-free sentences. And like, most Coen Brothers movies, True Grit must be watched more than once to truly appreciate the greatness of the film. Fortunately, the more you watch any movie by Joel and Ethan Coen, the better they get. The same will be true of True Grit.
Against the stark landscapes in True Grit stand the brilliantly colored performances of Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross and Matt Damon as La Boeuf. In the smaller, yet memorable roles Josh Brolin is the murder, Tom Chaney, Barry Pepper is Lucky Ned Pepper. Jeff Bridges, who is nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the gravel-voiced, quick triggered Rooster Cogburn gives a performance, completely different from John Wayne’s swaggering Rooster.
The stand out performance comes from Hailee Steinfeld in her first major movie role. She holds her own alongside veteran actors like Jeff Bridges and Mat Damon. Hailee received a Supporting Actress nomination for her first major acting role as the strong-willed Mattie. But as the main character and appearing in almost every scene in the movie, Steinfeld should have been nominated for Best Actress.
