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I admit that my criteria is weighed heavily for a plausible evocation of a time, place and situation I've not experienced and am not likely to experience. As soon as that vision of Fort Smith came onto the screen, I was predisposed to like it. And the introduction of Mattie was a wonderful, feisty and, to me, a very realistic character... I certainly don't think we can extrapolate such a movie about such people into some grand philosophical statement about human nature. After all, a flick about the Donner Party or the Franklin Expedition isn't necessarily advocating cannibalism, is it? But I think you misread the Mattie as depicted in the new movie. As what you call "an old maid," she was as headstrong as feisty as she was a kid. What nice few lines at Frank James to close the movie. I think nobody in the theatre saw her moving Cogburn's body as anything simply acquisitive or lacking in tenderness. Still, I have a lot of affection for the old movie, too. ML On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 7:06 PM, Gary MacLennan <gary.maclenn...@gmail.com>wrote: > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > > I opted for two hours or so of air conditioning to get away from the heat > wave that has swept over Brisbane since the flood. So Let us be honest > here, > I read Lou’s review and the subsequent posts with great care. But I sat > down there quite prepared to enjoy the film. I recently caught the > original > on cable and though it is not my favourite Western it is still pretty good. > > > > > So how does the Coen Bros remake shape up (IMHO)? Well it looks beautiful > and has a great score. The acting of the lead, Hailee Steinfeld, is > astonishingly good. The film itself seems an odd mixture of the Revenge and > the Professional Western. Mattie wants to revenge her father, while all > the > other characters only move for money. But they do take a pride in being > professional bushwhackers. > > > > So much for the aesthetics, what about the truth claims that the film makes > about humanity and life? And what about the ethics of the film? Where is > the moment of redemption or hope for humanity? Well for me the film > crashes > out here. This is yet another exercise in the discourse of “Humanity is a > piece of shit”. I got the kind of feeling I get when I watch a Scorsese > movie where even the gangsters are not likable. > > > > Cogburn’s redemptive moment when he saves Mattie’s life was undercut by the > final scenes. It seems he had saved her to become an embittered, crippled > “old maid”. All the wonderful liveliness of the young Mattie had leached > away. The gesture of having Cogburn's body relocated seems motivated not > by > tenderness as in the original film but by sheer acquisitiveness. > > > > In the Hathaway version Cogburn and Mattie forge a real friendship. She > also > bids a touching farewell to the Leboeuf character who dies saving her life. > > > > I thought about the post saying that “revolutions make people better’, > which > was on the list. I thought of the courage and camaraderie of Tahrir Square > and contrasted it with the hopeless nihilism of the Coen vision. It is the > absence of the hope for revolution that produces the kind of films the Coen > Bros make and guarantees them an audience. > > > comradely > > > Gary > ________________________________________________ > Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/markalause%40gmail.com > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
