Re: True Grit

On Tue, 28 Dec 2010, pcg wrote:

> > Quite a few Coen brothers (why is the "b" always capitalized?) . . .
>
> Heh, I actually stopped to consider whether it should be capitalized or 
> not. I settled on a capital, because I imagined "Coen Brothers" as a 
> screen credit, and determined that it definitely be capitalized. After I 
> sent the message, however, I realized that I don't think they've ever 
> technically shared a screen credit, have they?

Y'know, I don't know.  I think, for some time, one of them was officially 
credited as Producer and the other as Director, but in more recent years I 
think they may have officially acknowledged that they both do both.  (And 
they also share the editing duties under a pseudonym, Roderick Jaynes -- 
and they were nominated for an Oscar at least once under this pseudonym! 
I don't think they won, but it would have been interesting to see who 
accepted the Oscar, and how, if they *had* won in that category. :) )

> I don't feel the same way. It's true, they're playing it pretty straight 
> for a "Coen brothers' film," but I could definitely sense their vibe 
> throughout. Who else would have included the bizarre, disconnected scene 
> with the traveling "doctor" in the bear-skin coat?

Heh.  I will never the words "medical... attention" in quite the same way 
again.

> I also found myself wondering how much of the film's humor comes from 
> the novel, and how much was written by the Coens. I know I said the film 
> isn't funny in a "Coen brothers" way, but the more I reflect on it, the 
> less I'm sure of that. A lot of the dialogue had that abstract, oblique 
> quality that marks a lot of their work. (Also, did anyone else notice 
> that nobody in the film uses contractions? Struck me as odd for a 
> western. Does that come from the novel, I wonder?)

I have heard that it does, yeah.  This seems to be one of those cases, 
like No Country for Old Men, where the source material was written with a 
very Coen-esque sensibility to begin with.

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