True Grit (1969/2010)

John Wayne won his only competitive acting Oscar for playing U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn in the 1969 Henry Hathaway-directed adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel, TRUE GRIT. That original film co-stars Kim Darby as the young Mattie Ross, a revenge-seeking girl who hires Cogburn to help locate Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father. The two are accompanied by Glen Campbell as La Boeuf, a Texas Ranger, and the original band of criminals included Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper.

And yet, in virtually every conceivable way, the Coen Brothers top the original film with their remake of TRUE GRIT, based more directly from the novel than from the original film, though watching the two back-to-back reveals countless commonalities.

There are many reasons why I like the new TRUE GRIT better, beginning with the acting performances. For me, Jeff Bridges (himself nominated for the same role that won Wayne the Oscar), acts circles around Wayne as Cogburn. Wayne deserved his Oscar for “The Searchers,” a John Ford masterpiece made a decade and a half prior to this film and the go-to answer to any accusation that Wayne could not act. But in the 1969 TRUE GRIT, he really does feel like John Wayne with an eye patch, not nearly as offensive, cantankerous and dangerous as Bridges’ foul Rooster.

And new discovery and fellow Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld is miles better than Darby as Mattie Ross. Darby, with her pixie bob haircut, is far too Disney-looking for a tale as dark as this; she’s a squeaky-clean androgyne and far less believable than Steinfeld’s acid-tongued, independent Ross. I never once could imagine Darby’s Mattie taking care of herself, but I never had that thought with Steinfeld. In fact, it is her performance that ratchets the film up from great to greatness, and though Melissa Leo was great in “The Fighter,” I secretly wished that Steinfeld would win that Oscar.

The Coens’ TRUE GRIT also outguns the original in terms of art direction and cinematography, both of which set distinct tones between the two versions. There’s a surprising amount of green grass and daylight in the original film, whereas the remake is all brown and grey and happening under the cover of night and in the shadows. The new GRIT is more dangerous and surprisingly more antiquated in look and feel, and it does the material justice.

As I continue to grow as a fan of the Western genre, my expectations for attempts to revive the genre for modern audiences continue to elevate, and I found the new TRUE GRIT to be the best film of its kind since “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” a few years back. With a supporting cast that includes Matt Damon and Josh Brolin in memorable roles, this is a film I can’t wait to buy on Blu-ray and watch over and over again. The original, sadly, is too innocent looking now and lacks the impact of what the Coens brought to their modern adaptation.

One complaint about the 2010 version: no Oscars? The film was the second most nominated this past year with 10 nods, and not a single win. Steinfeld and cinematographer Roger Deakins were, in my mind, the most noticeably robbed of the accolade. In a year when the love was spread around on Oscar night among many films, it’s a crime that this TRUE GRIT was left out. But like many great Westerns, including the aforementioned “The Searchers,” it joins a list of vital classics of its cinematic genre overlooked at the time of its release for just how profoundly perfect it is.

1969 TRUE GRIT: 2.5 0ut of 4

2010 TRUE GRIT: 4.0 out of 4

Dogtooth (2009/2010 distribution)

Towards the end of the film DOGTOOTH, an adventurous choice for a Best Foreign Language Film nomination from Greece directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, a young woman stands in the family bathroom with a hand weight and proceeds to punch herself in the mouth with it until one of her teeth is knocked out. When her younger sister discovers that she has done this (and subsequently taken off), she awakens her dad by first licking his hand and then, after straddling him and unbuttoning his shirt, licking his chest.

If that sounds good to you, you’ll like DOGTOOTH. If it sounds insane, as I’m hoping it should to anyone, the film is only watchable as a car crash-styled fascination. Billed as a dark comedy, DOGTOOTH is 90 minutes lacking in rationality and morality. And I have to tell you that I never laughed, not once.

There are aspects of DOGTOOTH that are visionary, such as sharply-contrasting visuals and tone. The film, for all practical purposes, is a science fiction movie, yet it’s set on the grounds of a comfortable suburban home with a spacious yard and in-ground pool. There, a husband and wife raise their three young adult children. None of them are named. Only the father leaves the house, so that he can earn a living for the family by running a local factory. If the wife wants to call her husband, she uncovers a hidden phone in their bedroom; the kids are completely closed off from the outside world.

If you think that’s weird, you don’t know weird. The dad brings a woman named Christina over regularly. She is blindfolded first. The purpose of her visits is to satisfy his son’s sexual needs. Sex in this film, as it is in many European films, is graphic and in plain view. In this film, it often feels moments away from pornography, were it not for the fact that every sexual act in this film is presented with all the passion of a business exchange. Christina eventually gets bored with the young man and coaxes one of his sisters into some, um, licking. You can let your mind wander on that one.

A huge fence surrounds the house and yard, and one of the behavior modifications used on the kids is that they are told that they have a brother who lives on the other side of the fence because he was bad and this is his punishment. Throughout the film, each of the three kids is seen staring at the fence or going near it; one even sneaks cake out of the house to throw over the fence, hoping to feed her brother. But the brother, of course, is just one of many things that is completely made up by their parents. And when they feel their children are getting too inquisitive about the real world, they “kill off” the brother in dramatic and incredulous fashion, instilling the lesson that safety only exists within the house. Eventually, the father decides that Christina is a corrupting influence on the family and does away with her – by beating her with a VCR. His next brilliant idea is to suggest incest as a way of meeting his son’s carnal needs.

The kids are taught their own vocabulary. If they hear a word from Christina that is unfamiliar to them, they ask a parent about it and are given crazy answers that they have no ability to discredit. A “zombie,” for example, is a “small yellow flower.” One daughter asks her mother to pass the phone at dinner and receives a salt shaker. In addition, the kids compete in bizarre endurance contests and receive stickers as rewards for their efforts. One of the film’s most striking images is watching the young man having very graphic and passion-free sex with Christina as she’s grabbing the headboard of his bed, which is covered in stickers as a little kid might decorate his room.

DOGTOOTH is such a puzzling world unto itself that I had to keep a list on paper while watching the film of everything I was seeing and try to put things together as I went along. My observations included everything from the youngest daughter cutting the feet off of Barbie dolls while shrieking as if the pain was her own to the kids being told that their mother is pregnant with “two kids and a dog” so that the father can explain the existence of the family dog he bought that is being trained at a kennel before it joins the family. There must be a reason for everything, but the kids don’t know those reasons until the dad tells them. And the film doesn’t give us any of the reasons. Truth be told, I often felt I had little reason to continue watching this perverse movie.

Lanthimos sprinkles the film with bizarre frame compositions that often cut off the heads and limbs of the characters onscreen. He also shows us a shocking amount of matter-of-fact and graphic violence that, even when it doesn’t draw blood (and it frequently does) is as horribly violent as anything in a Hollywood film. While watching, I was reminded of Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist.” I thought that movie was the most outrageous thing I’d ever seen. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think DOGTOOTH has it beat. At least I cared about one of the characters in that movie. I’m not sure I cared about anything in this one. I guess I wanted to see the kids escape; I felt sorry for them. But Lanthimos has all of his actors deliver their lines with an anesthetized chill, making it difficult for the audience to draw close to anyone.

Like the aforementioned “Antichrist,” DOGTOOTH is more of a cinematic experiment than it is a movie that could possibly satisfy an audience in any conceivable way that a “normal” film would satisfy an audience. And like that film, a fascinating psychological idea – worth of exploration – falls prey to ridiculous plot twists and visuals. I will admit that I couldn’t turn away from DOGTOOTH, as revolted as I was by it. But that’s not enough to make it a good movie. Comedies should make you laugh. This one doesn’t. And probing psychological studies should make you think. This one only shocks.

1.0 out of 4

Blue Valentine (2010)

I saw BLUE VALENTINE weeks ago and forgot to write a review soon thereafter, so I wish I could see it again before posting something here on the film, because I probably won’t do a good enough job of convincing you why you should see such a raw and downbeat film. But you should.

Dean, played by Ryan Gosling, and Cindy, played by Oscar-nominated Michelle Williams, are a young married couple with a young daughter. Like so many other couples out there, their marriage is on the rocks. In this case, Dean wants them to stay together but provides Cindy with little to justify that they should. Cindy is becoming increasingly aware of what a dead-end the marriage is but struggles to walk away. Both of them know what they want, but neither do much of anything to get it.

As if the film is mimicking Cindy’s search for good enough reasons to stay while Dean slips further into erratic, alcoholic behavior, the movie skips around in time. We are taken to the euphoric, quiet and silly moment when, on a sidewalk, the two first fell in love. We are brought in uncomfortably close to the private desperation of Dean’s attempt at reigniting marital passion in a blue-lit hotel room.

Dean is uncontrollably romantic at times and, at other times, erratic and melodramatic. Cindy is often the opposite: quiet, guarded and weary. Both characters are played so magnificently by their actors that the film seems to offer little separation between fiction and real life. Only the movie screen reminds us that this isn’t a voyeuristic glimpse into the struggles of real people. Consequently, Williams’ Oscar nomination is refreshing because she eschews actor-y flash at all times.

Criminal, however, was the exclusion of Gosling from the lead actor nominations. I feel like this is – by a mile – the finest work from an actor who continues to delight audiences with complex portrayals, able to mine deeply from emotional wells. While I’m not sure which acting nominee this year should have omitted for his inclusion (because they are all worthy), when I reflect back on BLUE VALENTINE it is Gosling’s performance that I remember the most.

Director Derek Cianfrance has created a film that at times makes your face hurt from smiling at the possibilities of romance and, at other times, makes you cringe from the emotional violence it portrays. I suspect that there are many out there who wouldn’t look at such a realistic and painful story as “entertainment” and would, therefore, not enjoy a film like this. But I measure the success of a film by how deeply I care about its characters, and I cared as deeply for both Dean and Cindy as I did for any characters in a film this year. Yes, Dean is an alcoholic, but he believes – blindly – in the power of love. I wanted him to do the right thing and be happy. I wanted him to work at it. And Cindy, though she is always masking a bubbling anger, is plainly beautiful, gentle and caring. My desire for these two to work it out was as ridiculous as their prospects for successfully doing so. But isn’t that how it is in real life?

BLUE VALENTINE is downbeat, yes. But it’s also wonderfully real. And watching it has value because it makes you think about your own relationships. I can certainly understand why you might want to avoid a movie like this, but I assure you that you’ll be glad if you don’t.

4.0 out of 4