True Grit

True Grit (1969)

a film by Henry Hathaway

With the advent of the Cohen brothers' True Grit I felt compelled to cross this classic off the list and I found myself, a big skeptic of remakes, looking forward for their renewed version but longing that they keep the powerful story and the memorable landscapes as untouched as possible.

After Frank Ross is murdered by his hired hand, Tom Chaney, his 14-year-old daughter, Mattie Ross, leaves her home and hires the ruthless and aging US Marshall Rooster Cogburn to guide her to Indian Territory to capture Chaney and bring him back to the authorities.

This movie seems to arrive out of time. Right in the moment when the American cinema was receiving the effects of the Nouvelle Vague, it takes the camera into the impressive setting of the Western but with an acting an dramaturgy from the age of the studios. It heart-warming to see John Wayne in this movie, but it also seems that his Academy Award came as late as the release of this film. Nevertheless, the story is so powerful and the images are so impressive that this becomes a really enjoyable film. Both the amazing American landscapes and the most intimate and emotional moments between the characters are memorable, but often I found myself asking the director to move the camera a little bit out of the plane, to get a little bit closer to the characters as in that scene in which Mattie receives her dad's watch.

I enjoyed the short times when Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper appear in the screen, and felt the shake in the scene of the hangings. This is a good movie and I fear I'm asking to much from it now that I know that there is a new release. I'll miss John Wayne, but I hope the Cohen brothers made it well and fix the elements and the limitations of this version because I really like this story.