Interesting article on the TRUE GRIT remake. Is there a resurgence in interest in The Western? I hope so.www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2011-02-17-westerns17_CV_N.htmThe Western genre gets back in the saddleBy Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAYUpdated 5h 49m ago |
True Grit. Two words that describe the stubborn determination of both the movie's teenage heroine and the soused U.S. marshal she hires to avenge her father's murder.
But that double-barreled compliment also applies to the venerable Western genre itself. Over the past century it has been lauded, scolded, bastardized and now even sci-fi-ized, yet it refuses to die.
In fact, the box-office success and awards nominations being heaped on Joel and Ethan Coen's reworking of the Charles Portis novel — the 1969 movie version of True Grit landed John Wayne an Oscar for his portrayal of that marshal, Rooster Cogburn— hints at a bona fide Western revival. The film is up for 10 Academy Awards on Feb. 27, including best picture.
That bodes well for upcoming projects that include the animated Rango (March 4), Jon Favreau's comic-book-based Cowboys & Aliens (July 29)and AMC's series Hell on Wheels (next fall), in which the gritty backdrop is the epic construction of the transcontinental railroad. All are wildly different in tone and scope, but each pays tribute to what is now a nearly mythical time and place that continues to hold sway over the national imagination.
CLASSICS: Five Westerns for the ages
"Then as now, being alive is often challenging, and the Western speaks directly to that," says Jeff Bridges, who is nominated for a best-actor Oscar as Cogburn. "It was just such an interesting time in our history, right after the Civil War and all. But beyond that, there's also the fact that having played cowboys and Indians as a kid means these movies often rekindle our own childhoods."
The Coen brothers were going after just such a magical-realism feel with elements of True Grit.
Specifically, "when Mattie (played by supporting-actress Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld, 14) crosses the river and joins Cogburn on his hunt, it was a bit like Alice going through the looking glass to an odd and hyper-real place," says Joel Coen, who wrote and directed Grit with his brother. "With the Western landscape, it's easy to mythologize."
'A hybridized version'
Do not underestimate the magnetic and transportive power of those sandstone spires, vast plains and deep canyons. "That Western tableau is just so beautiful that you practically feel you're outside when you're watching those movies," says John Simons, professor of literature at Colorado College and co-author with Robert Merrill of the forthcoming book Peckinpah's Tragic Westerns: A Critical Study.
"Westerns also explore what it means to be a man, and today, the definition of masculinity seems to be ever-changing," says Simons. He notes that the heyday of the Western was in the 1950s, when tough guys romped through Gunfight at the O.K. Corraland Shane. "The new True Grit isn't that, really — it's almost more of a young-adult movie focusing on the journey of a young girl. So in a way, we may be moving toward a hybridized version of the Western."
For some Western fans, just tinkering with Wayne's True Grit "is almost sacrilegious," says Jennings Brown, associate editor at Dallas-based Cowboys & Indians magazine. "Our core audience definitely was concerned. But with the critical acclaim and box-office success of the movie, I think die-hard Western fans are hoping this means an end to a slump," one that started not long after Clint Eastwood won two Oscars for 1992's Unforgiven.
"I am still a little concerned, though, about this attempt to rejuvenate the Western through movies that appeal to young and old, particularly the efforts made through comic books," says Brown. "Jonah Hex just did not work. Maybe Cowboys & Aliens can do better."
No less a Hollywood icon than Steven Spielberg is taking steps to see that it does. Early in preproduction for Cowboys & Aliens, he gathered his fellow producers and screened a newly minted copy of 1956's The Searchers.
"Steven said, 'Watch this. Look at where the horizon line is in relation to the actors, when it's high, when it's low,' " says Roberto Orci, a writer and producer on the project. "The rain itself can be made to look menacing. So in a sense, the elements can be as dangerous as the aliens. His point was we had to treat this as a Western first. If people didn't believe that's where we were, the movie just would not work."
Good guys vs. bad guys
One of the Western's lasting appeals — and outright illusions — is that it depicts simpler times. And that may hold particular appeal today, given the tenuous economy.
"When things get complicated, as they are now, people tend to gravitate toward stories in which the moral landscape is clear, there's a white hat and a black hat," says Grit producer Scott Rudin, who has Oscar nominations for both this film as well as the Facebook saga The Social Network. "I hope the success of our movie means doors will open wide for others to make Westerns."
Part of the reason the Western goes on is that it never really goes away. After all, Star Warsis pointedly a Western — Luke's in white, Darth Vader's in black — set in space.
"Looking at a forbidden and foreboding world has always fascinated us, so in that sense, Pirates of the Caribbean is a Western just as Star Trek is a Western," says Gore Verbinski, director of Rango, which features the voice of Johnny Depp as a chameleon thrust into a High Noonsetting. Verbinski also directed the first three Pirates movies.
"There is something wonderful about the characters in Westerns," he says. "We long for those classic heroes, set into those epic landscapes. These movies present a great opportunity for characters to define themselves in stark terms."
How stark? "Well, men were men and women worked in saloons," says Elmore Leonard with a laugh. Leonard launched his career writing Western novels — including 3:10 to Yuma, which was made into movies in 1957 and 2007 — and his works inspired FX's modern-day Western, Justified, starring Timothy Olyphant, himself a veteran of HBO's acclaimed Deadwood.
"I don't know a producer in Hollywood who doesn't at some point say, 'I really want to make a Western.' But of course most of them never do," says Leonard. "Cost is part of it. In the old days, if a horse got hurt on set, you shot it. Can't have that sort of thing today."
Freshening up the stories
Costs indeed do sideline some would-be Western auteurs. When the Coens started scouting locations for True Grit, they came across towns in New Mexico and Arizona "that just seemed too generically Western," says Joel Coen, who wound up building much of the outdoor set for his movie's town.
Sometimes Canada rides to the rescue, with its lower production costs. That was the option chosen by the producers of Hell on Wheels, though that doesn't mean their shooting woes are over.
"Whenever you're talking exteriors like this, you have to first be concerned with weather issues, and then the overall authenticity of the piece," says Charlie Collier, president and general manager of American Movie Classics channel.
"But we wanted to do this. These sorts of stories not only deal with American history, but there's an element of time travel back to an era when there was a code of honor and men took care of business," he says. "The appeal of that doesn't fade."
But that doesn't mean making a successful Western today is as easy as setting up opposing forces in a breathtaking part of the world at the dawn of the machine age. For while the Western's construct may not have changed, audiences have.
"The broader concern for the Western is that it is anchored in somewhat clichéd story line conventions that moviegoers by and large just won't go for today," says Robert Birchard, editor of the American Film Institute's Catalog of Feature Films. "For 50 years, it seemed like it was enough to have pretty horses, big stampedes and Indian attacks. If one is to hope for the return of the genre, there really has to be an effort made to make it fresh for new fans."
The Coen brothers may have found that formula with True Grit. By mixing the stock imagery of the Western with a story that is universal enough to exist outside of that 19th-century setting, the filmmakers tapped into a rich pan-audience vein.
"In many ways, we'd identified this story more with a Huckleberry Finn or a Treasure Island than a classic Western," says Joel Coen. "On the other hand, we were always aware of what we were making, from the horses to the scenery to the other iconic things that were defined by so many great films.
"So, I guess ours is a Western in quotation marks," says Coen. "You're free to mythologize it any way you wish."