The Duke meets The Duchess

The original "True Grit" features a more portly and slightly mellowed John Wayne in his signature rugged individualist type Western role. But the grizzled old veteran is still able to evoke a distinctive and memorable performance as Rooster Cogburn – a man who meets his match in a sprightly tomboy who seeks justice for her father's murder. Observations offered on this film, collected from last evening's CineVerse discussion, include the following:

A MOTIF IS DEFINED AS A DOMINANT THEME OR REPEATED DESIGN OR IMAGE. A GENRE IS DEFINED AS A CATEGORY, TYPE OR CLASS. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE COMMON MOTIFS OF TYPICAL WESTERN GENRE FILMS THAT ARE USED IN TRUE GRIT? FOR EXAMPLE, HORSES ARE A COMMON MOTIF IN TRUE GRIT AND OTHER WESTERNS. CAN YOU GIVE OTHER EXAMPLES?
• Homesteader community/frontier town
• Gunslingers
• Wide open spaces
• Desert landscapes
• The rough, dirty, darkly clothed and unkempt vs the cleaner, lighter-colored townspeople

HOW DOES ROOSTER COGBURN REPRESENT A SORT OF MYTHIC FIGURE – THE KIND WE’VE SEEN IN OTHER GENRES AND WORKS OF FICTION?
• He’s an outsider who wanders into an established town, not exactly trusted on either the good or bad side
• He lives by his own code of honor, bravery, dignity, like the samurai and the medieval knights
• He isnt’ afraid to take the law into his own hands; he merits own swift vigilante justice
• And yet, while he’s rugged and macho, he’s not a sexy, young stud of a gunslinger like we’ve seen in other westerns, and he isn’t self-conscious about his appearance or style

WHAT DOES COGBURN REPRESENT TO THE BAD GUYS?
• A caricature of the western hero: a one-eyed fat, old has-been who probably isn’t much of a threat

WHAT DOES COGBURN REPRESENT TO MATTIE?
• A father and grandfather figure in one, a bigger than life mythic hero

TRUE GRIT HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS A FILM THAT ECHOED JOHN WAYNE’S CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL VIEWPOINT. DO YOU SEE ANY EVIDENCE OF THIS IN THE MOVIE?
• “You can’t serve papers on a rat”—his form of justice is the way of the gun
• The movie seems to favor stricter laws and tougher treatment of criminals

WHAT DOES JOHN WAYNE BRING TO THIS ROLE AND WHY WAS HE ULTIMATELY THE RIGHT CASTING CHOICE?
• He’s played other loner, rugged, morally ambiguous heroes in the past, so we’re already emotionally invested in the values and archetypal traits he brings to a western hero character.

1969 WAS A BIG YEAR FOR WESTERNS:

• Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
• The Wild Bunch
• McKenna’s Gold
• Support Your Local Sherrif
• Paint Your Wagon

JOHN WAYNE WON THE BEST ACTOR OSCAR FOR THIS ROLE; THE ACADEMY SEEMS TO LIKE TO REWARD ACTORS WHO EITHER SIGNFICANTLY CHANGE THEIR APPEARANCE OR HAVE A DISABILITY OF SOME KIND. CAN YOU NAME SOME EXAMPLES?

• DeNiro in Raging Bull (from thin and buff to overweight and washed up)
• Daniel Day Lewis, my left foot (cerebral palsy)
• Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (autism)
• William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman (flamboyant homosexual)
• Charlize Theron in Monster
• Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray and Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (blind man)
• Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump (developmentally disabled)
• Jon Voight as a disabled Vietnam Vet in Coming Home
• Hillary Swank, masquerading as a boy in Boys don’t cry
• Frances McDormand as a pregnant Sherrif in Fargo
• Marlee Matlin as a deaf woman in Children of a Lesser God