True Reboot

by Thomas M. Pender

After seeing the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit in the theatre, I immediately rented the John Wayne original, to get a good sense of the similarities and differences.  I can say with delight that some things are the same and some are different, but all elements either matched or outshone the original!

First of all, I have to commit what I’m sure will be seen as a Commie Un-American act, and admit publicly that John Wayne, icon that he was and is, was no actor.  Our man John played the exact same character in about one hundred films, without so much as flexing a single acting muscle.  (Forgive me, Dad, but it had to be said.)  Jeff Bridges, on the other hand, has played many diverse characters in the past few decades, and to his credit, he does not try to play Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn as John Wayne.  Bridges, the much more capable of Lloyd Bridges’ acting sons, plays Cogburn with fire and slosh, which is exactly how a drunkard U.S. Marshal past his prime should be played.

The rest of the principle actors are just as outstanding in their abilities to breathe new life into existing characters.  Matt Damon is playing LaBoeuf in this resurrection.  Damon is a talented actor with good range, and therefore wastes no time at all in overshadowing the very wooden Glen Campbell.  Campbell, who irritated Wayne to no end in the production of the original, was hired simply to record the title song and get it sold.  Before he was hired, the producers considered Elvis Presley, so you can see where their heads were at, and acting skills were not a priority.

Kim Darby, who had a few acting credits to her name before Grit, also chafed Wayne’s britches as a whiny semi-decent actress.  Mattie Ross is now being played by little-known Hailee Steinfeld, and she easily takes the reins from Darby.

The character of baddie Ned Pepper was wisely cast in both versions.  Robert Duvall, who would later appear in The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Tender Mercies, among many other achievements, did well as Pepper in the original.  Character actor Barry Pepper does so well as the dim-witted antagonist, and is made up so well, that I didn’t recognize the actor until the film was half over!  I mentioned in a prior column that Pepper is an underused gem in Hollywood, and I’m hoping his role in this big-budget Christmas release will lead to much bigger projects for him!

Main bad guy Tom Chaney, originally portrayed by Jeff Corey, is here fleshed out by Josh Brolin.  I have seen Jeff Corey in several film and television productions of the late 1960s, and he is only slightly better than Wayne in his ability to emote and vary his characters.  Brolin, however, has impressed me for years, both as heroes and villains, and he continues to impress with this role.

Behind the camera, I was pleased that the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, did not turn a revered Western into a . . . well, Coen brothers film.  Known for writing and directing such outright weird tales as Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo and No Country For Old Men, I was a bit worried when I heard they were piloting this remake.  Quite frankly, I was afraid Marshal Cogburn would be riding a hippopotamus!  My fears were eased early in the film.  By no means a carbon copy, this remake does pay plentiful respect to its predecessor.  Some scenes are added, some deleted, and others altered, but enough is untouched that the original story shines through, while the new telling is a beautiful new creature all on its own.

Love or hate John Wayne, Jeff Bridges or the Coen brothers, you will certainly find something enjoyable in this new film.  My generation, and the younger generations behind me, do not get to enjoy a newly-made old-fashioned Western nearly as often as we should.  I recommend you get out and do so now.

Respectable Flops: “Heaven’s Gate” and “Seven Years In Tibet”

by Thomas M. Pender

Their titles have become synonymous with the word “flop.”  One name is the controversial Hollywood equivalent of the word “Watergate,” and the other is hardly remembered at all.  Yet, when the controversial and financial dusts settled, I discovered two very enjoyable films!

In 1980, one film nearly toppled an entire studio.  Michael Cimino, fresh from his Oscar juggernaut The Deer Hunter, was literally given a blank check to create his next masterpiece . . . and use that check, he did!  His next script, with the lofty title Heaven’s Gate, cost United Artists $42 million dollars, due largely in part to Cimino’s overshooting and meticulousness.  It netted the respected studio, which had been founded by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, only $3 million domestically, and the studio had to scramble to stay alive.

Seventeen years later, Jean-Jacques Annaud brought a true story of hope and redemption to the screen, featuring one of Hollywood’s biggest young stars . . . and the world ignored it.  At a cost of $70 million, Seven Years in Tibet netted under $38 million in the U.S., despite Brad Pitt’s starring role.  The World War II-era tale of an imprisoned Austrian Olympic mountain climber, who later became a personal confidante to the Dalai Lama, just didn’t seem to draw the kids into the theatre.

There have been reams of paper written about these films: their ringleaders’ irresponsibility, the chances that were taken during shooting, and the empty theatre seats.  Now that the dust has long settled, I wish to concentrate on something that was hardly touched on: the stories.

Both films are based on fact.  Heaven’s Gate chronicles the Johnson County Wars, which took place in Wyoming in the late 1880s.  Rich cattle ranchers and starving immigrants butted heads until eventually, the rich landowners massacred the poorer residents.  Using historical figures James Averill, Frank Canton and Ella (“Cattle Kate”) Watson, the story is told not only by the events, but by the people.  This is not an on-screen history lesson, this is a dramatic tragedy that happens to have actually occurred.

The cast is a bit startling: Though Cimino did bring along Oscar-winning Deer Hunter star Christopher Walken (thinner and less “creepy” in those days!), the big star of the film is . . . Kris Kristofferson?????  True, the man did have a dozen movies under his belt at the time, including the successful A Star Is Born four years prior, but making him the central star of an epic adventure was a huge gamble at this stage in his acting career.  Still, the country singer, songwriter, and (don’t faint!) Rhodes Scholar is very commanding in his role, and seems capable of leading the entire film forward.  The bulk of the cast was relatively unknown at the time, but makes for a fun game of “Hey, I know that guy!” nowadays.  Subsequent stars in innocent faces include Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, and Sam Waterston, among many others.

For me, a big draw to this film is the music.  David Mansfield, only 24 at the time, fills almost every scene with incredibly emotional violin, from the raucous Cajun-esque band music of the roller-skating scene to the touching love scenes to the closing scenes of loss, the music takes your emotions everywhere with ease.  (Mansfield himself has a small two-line part in the film, and can be seen playing the violin – on skates no less! – in the rink scene.)

I respect Brad Pitt greatly for taking on the challenge of Seven Years In Tibet.  Pitt, already known at the time for Thelma & Louise, A River Runs Through It, Interview With A Vampire, and Legends of the Fall, seems to have taken a non-sex-symbol chance on a project he believed in.  It’s a wartime plot, but not exactly about wartime.  There is no strong love story, and very little humor.  It’s hard to imagine what the studio thought its audience would be with this one.  Mountain climbing fanatics?  Buddhists?  Beyond the handicaps, though, are many strong and entertaining performances by Pitt, B.D. Wong (recognizable from Steve Martin’s two Father of the Bride films), Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk as the young Dalai Lama, Lhakpa Tsamchoe, and David Thewliss (who I generally find useless and irritating, but he does a good job here as Pitt’s co-climber and co-prisoner).

Behind the scenes, about 20 minutes of footage was secretly filmed inside the impossible-to-visit nation of Tibet itself.  The film looks spectacular, but this is only a positive side note.   The entertainment value of a film always seems to boil down to characters and plot in my estimation.  The plot is very interesting, particularly since it’s a true story, and the characters are also very intriguing.  I blame the low turnout for this film on the marketing team.  The main posters were just a shot of Pitt’s head, and the trailers did not really give up the plot or show any exciting footage.

If you can forgive the noticeably awful sound editing in some scenes, where the dialogue is drowned out by the background noises, Heaven’s Gate is a tale that will interest fans of Westerns, romance, and The History Channel.  Seven Years In Tibet will also entice The History Channel subscribers, as well as war film fans.  If you’re hungry to see something unique in film, check out these titles!