Relevant Magazine interview with Coen brothers / Jeff Bridges

*(Some spoilers if you haven't seem the other movie, or read the book)*

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/film/features/23930-the-coen-brothers-a-jeff-bridges-talk-true-grit

 The Coen Brothers & Jeff Bridges Talk True
Grit<http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/film/features/23930-the-coen-brothers-a-jeff-bridges-talk-true-grit>
 Carl Kozlowski
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[image: True Grit]

The iconic filmmakers and leading man talk their new film, morality and
American Shakespeare.

Joel and Ethan Coen have redefined much of American cinema in the 26 years
since their debut film, *Blood Simple*, which was a brilliant yet wicked
series of twists on the classic film noir style of movie. Their films have
always been fresh and original, yet some have been big hits (*No Country For
Old Men*, which won Best Picture) and others have been financial disasters (
*The Hudsucker Proxy*, which is well worth catching up to). But they’ve been
on a roll the last few years with *Country*, *Burn After Reading*, last
year’s Best Picture nominee *A Serious Man* and now, their new take on the
classic Western novel *True Grit*.

"Novel?" you might wonder. Yes, *True Grit* was a book by a brilliant and
reclusive Southern writer named Charles Portis, even though it’s much more
famous as the 1969 movie that finally won John Wayne an Oscar after decades
of iconic performances. So how can the Coens make this film their own?

Well, for one thing, they never saw the other film, and are simply rabid
fans of the source novel, which they adhere to much more closely in their
new version of the tale. And secondly, they brought back Jeff Bridges, who
brought to life what is perhaps their most famous character, The Dude, in
1998’s absolute classic *The Big Lebowski*. Together the Coens and Bridges
bring some new zest, and a whole lot of passion and fun to this tale of
divine retribution in the Old West. RELEVANT caught up with the Coens and
Bridges recently in Los Angeles to discuss their new film with them.
Hi, Jeff. You have a very iconic character in this movie. Why has the eye
patch been moved from the left eye to the right eye?

*Bridges*: I’m a Commie.
Seriously, did you think about that? Did you do it as a statement?

*Bridges*: No, no, you know we, the right eye felt good. Put it on the left
eye, not so good. Put it on the right eye this feels good. What do you think
guys? We went back and forth like that you know.
Did you have any hesitation initially taking on a role that was made famous
by John Wayne himself?

*Bridges*: Well I was curious why these guys wanted to make that movie again
and I think it was Ethan who I talked to first and he corrected me and he
said no, we’re not making that movie. We’re making the book as if there
wasn’t any, you know, no other movie ever made kind of thing. We were just
referring to the book and I wasn’t familiar with the book. He said “well,
check that out and tell me what you think” and I read the book and then I
saw what they were talking about because it’s such a wonderful book and it
suited them so well.  And what a great character. You know most westerns
have that strong silent type and here’s this boorish, you know loud guy. So
that was going to be a lot of fun I thought.
Tell me if I’m reaching here, but the more I thought about the movie, the
more I realized it’s less a western than it is a really, really dark comedy.
And then for the actors, you were dealing with a script that was very
stylized, can you talk about tackling the dialogue?

*Ethan Coen*: Less a western than a dark comedy. Well, there’s certainly a
lot of comedy. There’s a lot of humor in the Charles Portis novel. It was
one of the things that was very, attracted us to the novel and the idea of
adapting it. And we wanted to you know, what was funny about the book, the
humor in the book to sort of come through in the movie. That was important.

*Joel Coen*: And the dialogue, too. I mean the kind of formality of it and
the floweriness of it also is just from the book. Again, that might be a
question for the actors. Jeff, that was the first thing Jeff mentioned,
noticed and liked, the kind of foreign sounding nature of the dialogue and
the lack of contractions. It wasn’t a problem for us. We just lifted it from
the book. I don’t know how the actors feel about it.

*Bridges*: Yeah, it was more like doing American Shakespeare. There’s sort
of almost like an iambic pentameter. There’s a musicality and a rhythm to
the dialogue. It’s so specific that you really, you know you’re working very
much with what’s on the page. There’s not endless rewrites throughout
production. It’s such a specific script that it’s about trying to hit
certain notes, maybe in a reverent falloff at the end of a line. That’s
where the brothers were so amazing, it’s such a gift to be able to give some
sort of lateral idea to an actor that “oh, I didn’t hear the musicality of
the line like that” and just the scene blossoms, completely changes and
becomes darkly humorous or odd or quirky or wonderful, bizarre. But it’s a
very structured piece I found in that respect. Charles Portis has such a
specific vernacular of the period. It’s so authentic, in my mind. Because
most people were probably, you know pretty illiterate back then. They were
maybe schooled on the King James Bible and that really infused the way that
they spoke and I think a lot of westerns missed that.
Somebody smart pointed out that (SPOILER ALERT) Maddie’s in peril but not in
real danger until she kills a man, until she takes a life and then she falls
into the pit and awakens the sleeping serpents. So in telling the story, was
that something, the sense of consequence, something that was important to
you to relay? Is that something that was attractive?

*Joel Coen*: No, I think that’s, I don’t think that’s a real—and certainly
not the reading that we were giving to it. You know somebody mentioned
earlier we were talking just a little bit about this sort of western genre,
how sort of conscious that was and as we mentioned in other context a couple
of times, one of the things that struck us about the novel, just generically
was that what we took away from it more than a western was the sense of it
almost being sort of this youthful adventure story or kind of fitting into
the genre of what you might call young adult adventure fiction or something
like that and frequently in those kinds of stories – there was something
that was real interesting to us actually just in terms of how the story
worked. In connection with that, you often have this kind of perils of
Pauline kind of action at a certain point where one thing just leads to
another so that’s I think closer to the way we were looking at it.
So it’s not a morality tale?

*Joel Coen*: Well that’s certainly an element of the story and the novel but
I wouldn’t associate it with her killing a guy and then felling into a pit
with snakes. Yeah, I mean I wouldn’t, I don’t think that’s where it comes
in.
At the beginning of the film when you open with like a quote from Proverbs
and the girl has like a sort of divine sense of mission to get revenge or
justice for her dad, was that something that was inherent to the book? It
seemed kind of new for your guys’ work. Was anything like common on that
level of the story line for the Coen's?

*Ethan Coen*: Yeah, it’s in the book. I mean the opening voiceover is taken
directly from the book. The reference to that particular Proverb is in the
beginning of the book, not as an epigraph but in the context of her you know
speaking and her narration. And the divine sense of mission is definitely a
big part of the—I mean that’s taken directly from—that’s a big part of the
story. So yeah, I mean in every respect the answer’s yes from the book.


Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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