True Grit Review

I originally gave the newest film from the Coen Brothers four out of five stars. It’s strange, but I seem to be falling more and more for this film as it ages in my mind. It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the two-headed director made up of the aforementioned siblings. I think that at first glance I was actually rating this film not on a scale of five normal flick stars but on more of a personal Coen stars system that exists primarily in my own head. Four out of five Coen stars is pretty damn good actually. If the film would have had any other director’s name after the ‘film by’ credit, I’m sure it would have earned a full five from me. This is a really great film and it holds up quite nicely compared especially to the rest of what’s come out this year. I can’t really help the fact that I go into every new Coen film expecting to be completely blown away. In recent years especially, I would say we now have two masterpieces out of their previous four films. “No Country For Old Men” was my favorite film of ’07 and “A Serious Man” was my second favorite film last year and my third favorite of the entire decade. These guys have set their own bar pretty high and with every new piece, they have a lot to live up to. That being said, this was a good Coen Brothers film and a great western. Well now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get into some specifics.

This film, first of all is a great performance piece. Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn was just a big and brazen as you would expect. His mannerisms and gruff mumbling carry the weight of every ounce of whiskey and every roll-your-own cigarette his character has consumed throughout all his previous years. Somehow still, damaged and broken, he remains undoubtedly larger than life. His was the third best performance of this film.

At first glance, the greatness of Matt Damon’s performance could easily be overlooked. His character, La Boeuf is the perpetual odd man out. While the other two are given a constant flow of sharp dialogue, he is much more reserved. He is even somewhat goofy, in a very puritanical and honorable Boy Scout sense. Damon’s performance was pitch perfect. Its success depended on all the little things he did so well. I had heard he was good before I saw this but the more I think about, this was probably his best performance to date.

To say that thirteen-year-old Hailee Steinfeld’s Mattie Ross was the breakout performance of the year is a ridiculous understatement. She was flat-out, hands-down, end-of-discussion amazing and her performance was not only the best in the film, it was simply the best part of the film. She issued every snippy bit of wit with perfect rhythm and determined conviction. It was as if she were the long lost lovechild of a nun and a metronome. The most amazing part of this was how she was able to pull this off without ever once seeming the least bit precocious.

Roger Deakins’ cinematography was great as usual, although not as obviously great as some of his previous work. This film seemed to demand a much more subtle look than something like “Road To Perdition” or “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” That doesn’t mean this film was without technical achievement. Several scenes were shot with extremely low light and a candle projecting dancing shadows on a wall or perfectly framed wide angle scenery of the terrain and the subjects contained in it.

I must say that I would have liked the subtlety applied to the camera work to have been equally applied to the score. Carter Burwell’s music was not bad at all, just too baroque and grandiose than I thought the mood of the film asked for. I guess that was the idea though. This film was essentially the telling of an almost mythical story from the memory of fourteen year old girl. Damn it, I think I’m already talking myself out of that critique too.

I think it’s worth noting that this was the Coen’s first Spielberg produced film. I’m also a fan of Spielberg and I’m not exactly sure if he influenced anything particular on this movie but there were a few things that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a Coen film. I don’t recall ever seeing the use of a blue screen or CGI in any of their previous work, and I can’t say I was a big fan of its use in this film. In the case of the CGI, I’m not really sure how they could have gotten away with doing it any other way but it still seemed to be a bit distracting to me. I think the blue screen sequence was meant to induce some sort of dream like visual but again, it didn’t really work that well for me. This film also contained a very non-Coenesque epilogue. It worked out pretty well; it just wasn’t how I am accustomed to seeing a Coen Brothers film end.

I should also mention how darkly humorous this film was. This, most definitely was something I’ve grown to expect from these film makers. Goofy character quirks and generally weird happenings along with matter-of-fact violence are the typical garnishes that always seem to accompany the main course of Coen plot. So with that, I will conclude that this may be one of the, if not the most crowd pleasing films in the entirety of the Coen Brother’s repertoire. It seems to be closest thing to a strait genre film that they have done since “Intolerable Cruelty”…… and most of us have long since forgiven them for that one.

Double feature of the week: Bob Clark Christmas Special

A Christmas Story & Black Christmas

These are my two favorite holiday films. They may not seem to have much in common at first glance (or 2^nd or 3^rd for that matter) but alas, this is my blog so we’ll run with it. Both of these films were directed by the same man: Porky’s director, Bob Clark.

The first film, “Black Christmas” (1974) is one of my favorite horror films of the 70’s. It takes place at a sorority house over Christmas break in which a strange caller is terrorizing the sorority sisters. I really love the voyeuristic camera work in this film as we see through the killer’s eyes as he navigates around the house to his next victim. The twist ending is great and only undercut by the fact that we have by now seen countless reincarnations of the same surprise.

The next film, “A Christmas Story” (1983) or as I like to call it: “Black Christmas Zero: A Prequel” is an undeniable classic. We follow Ralphie Parker in the weeks leading up to a mid-west American Christmas. Try as he might, Ralphie can’t seem to convince anyone, be it his parents, his teacher or even Santa himself that a Red Rider BB gun is an appropriate gift. This film might actually be more terrifying that the latter. As a child, I watched this movie constantly. I recall many nights waking in a cold sweat, my mind flooded with visions of my tongue frozen to a light pole; the result of a triple-dog-dare. Children with this type of upbringing could only mature into one type of adult. Sorority house murder was in the cards from the beginning. Just look at that face........

Happy Holidays…

Double feature of the week: Inherent Tension

Wages of Fear & The Terrorist

These two films have something in common with each other. Both films have relatively simple, although maybe unusual premises which unfold for the audience in moments of extreme tension. More specifically, with these two films I feel that the tension never needs to be forced because it is so inherent to the premise of the plot.

The first film, “The Wages of Fear” (1953) from director Georges-Clouzot is a simple story about 4 men trapped in a small South American town unable to raise enough money to purchase the plane ticket out. They are soon presented with a job opportunity when one of the mines explodes. Four men, two trucks full of highly volatile explosives and 1 narrow, bumpy and winding road provide all the tension this film could ask for. It’s no secret why Clouzot was referred to as the “French Hitchcock”. This flick is full of good old fashion, white-knuckle, edge of your seat nerve.

Our next film from Indian filmmaker Santosh Sivan is “The Terrorist” (1998). This is quite frankly an amazing film about a guerilla fighter (played by the beautiful Ayesha Dharker) who is training for the very prestigious position of suicide bomber. We watch as she prepares for her last days, meticulously counting them down, all the while learning what value life can hold. I picked this movie up completely blind about ten years ago on VHS and have loved it ever since.

Enjoy...

Why I Don’t Like Night of the Hunter

For some strange reason, certain contemporaries have and continue to debate the legitimacy of film as its own art form. Many have argued that a movie is nothing more than a filmed play and that entertainment, not art is the only true value of the industry that I love so dearly. Others constantly and snobbishly compare the literature that the film was based on or inspired from. “The book was better” and “The book is always better” are dismissive phrases I’ve heard many times. I doubt any of these people have ever read Peter Benchley’s “Jaws”. Unfortunately, in spite of the many strides the medium has made, there have always been films that I feel give very good clout to these arguments. But before I get into those examples, I think that I should make an attempt at explaining what I think legitimizes film as an art form and what separates it from other mediums.

So let’s see, what are some of the aspects of filmmaking that are specific to film? A screenplay is written but that’s not all that different than writing a book. Plays have a director that orchestrates everything that being shown and they similarly have sets, costumes and less we forget actors. So there you have it, all you really do to make a movie is point a camera at a play where actors a reading some sort of cliff-notes version of a book and presto! There’s your movie….. Or is there more?

The answer of course is yes there’s more to making a film. The first part of filmmaking that dignifies it is my personal favorite thing to talk about, cinematography. In short, it is the collaborative effort of the director and the cinematographer that establishes and maintains the look of the film. The cinematographer serves not only as a technical consultant for camera equipment and lighting, but as an integral artistic voice of the film. He often will be even more capable than the director to answer things like what type and how much lighting is needed to set a certain tone, how an audience will subconsciously react to certain color palettes and why flashbacks sequences are shot in sepia tone. I was a shutterbug in junior high and through high school and it’s that love of captured images that drew me into movies in the first place.


What Vittorio Storaro does in ten seconds of footage in a film like “The Conformist” is just as poetic as anything from Frost, Poe or Shakespeare even.


The combination of lighting and colors on screen in the Christopher Doyle shot film “In The Mood For Love” would have taken Monet’s breath away. And I would also go a step further to point out that Conrad Hall’s camera work in “American Beauty” was the only thing that made that film watchable.


Artistic camera work is nothing new to motion pictures. The great Dutch silent film “The Passion of Joan of Arc” proved this in 1928. Cinematography, the art and science of creating and capturing moving images is not only a craft that requires the workmanship of a Quaker but an art that requires the vision of a Renaissance painter.

So now we’ve looked at just about everything it takes to shoot a film. Unfortunately, all we’re left with after that a piles and piles (or in this age files and files) of uncut footage. This will segway nicely into my next point. The other aspect of filmmaking, specific to the industry and very potentially artistic is editing. Granted, editing a film together could be a process a simple as putting all the scenes together chronologically and throwing out the stuff that seems to negatively affect the tone and pacing the director was going for. But more often than not, the editor of a film is yet one more artist who is there to help the director add more of his or her own personal touches to the finished product. The editing of a film can drastically affect its pace. For instance Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream”, edited by Jay Rabinowitz contained more than 2000 cuts in 102 minutes (the average film contains only 600 – 700 cuts per 100 minutes).


This brought the film to a feverish pace. Aronofsky called his style “hip-hop montage.” Contrast that with the editing of a film like David Fincher’s “Zodiac” cut by Angus Wall. This film was cut together in order to establish and maintain a much slower pace and add tension.


Again, artistic post production is nothing new. The “Odessa steps sequence” of the 1925 Russian silent film “The Battleship Potemkin” is widely regarded as the first use of artistic editing in which the scene is chopped together to build tension.

Well then, 800 words later and I actually haven’t once yet mentioned the film in the title of this article. I guess now is as good a time as any to get to the point. “The Night of the Hunter” (1955) was directed by long time stage actor and director, Charles Laughton. In fact, “The Night of the Hunter” was the only film he ever directed. This film has many of things a great film should have. It’s a great story translated into a very good screenplay and acted out wonderfully by Robert Mitchum, Shelly Winters and Lillian Gish. Some would say its Mitchum’s best performance……. Those people are correct. But wait, a great story told very well with phenomenal acting does not make a great film. It makes a great play.

Notice how, in over two minutes, the camera moves all of once.


Go ahead; look up some more clips of this film. Count the movements per scene. There isn’t much to speak of.

Contrast that with this scene from “Touch of Evil” directed by Orson Welles just three years later. As I mentioned before, artistic camera work is nothing new.

Also notice how painfully obvious it is that Laughton’s film was shot almost entirely on a sound set. I’ll admit, shooting on location was much more challenging back then but directors like Bergman and Kurosawa had been doing it successfully for years.

See this clip from Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” (1957)

And this one from Akira Kurosawa’s “Stray Dog” (1949)

黒澤明 Kurosawa, Akira 1949 野良犬 Stray Dog Opening
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So I guess I’ll start to wrap this up. It took a bit more than I thought to explain why I dislike this very good film and many others like it. In summary, the reason for my indifference is simple: Although “The Night of the Hunter” is (I admit) a very good film, there is nothing inherently cinematic about it. The camera and post production are used merely as stage props.