FILM

The mighty Coen brothers remaking a John Wayne movie? And getting ten Oscar nominations to boot? What the hell’s going on? Venue reports on the making of ‘True Grit’.

Only last week, director Rowan Joffe was assuring us that his 'Brighton Rock' was absolutely not a remake of the 1947 film, but a new version of Graham Greene's novel. Now here are the Coen brothers telling us much the same thing about their adaptation of Charles Portis's novel 'True Grit'. Of course, it helps that the 1969 version of the western, starring John Wayne, is no all-time classic. It was also nominated for a measly two Oscars (winning one) compared to the 10 nods recently notched up by the Coens, who claim to have only a passing acquaintance with the first film.

These include two well-deserved nominations in the acting categories. Thirteen-year-old newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is up for Best Supporting Actress. If it wasn't for King Colin Firth, Jeff Bridges would be a shoo-in for his second consecutive Best Actor gong after last year's 'Crazy Heart'. Steinfeld plays resolute young Mattie Ross, who sets out to avenge the death of her father by hiring drunken, out-of-condition marshal Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) to track down the 'coward' (Josh Brolin) responsible and bring him to justice.

Her casting came late in the day after thousands of young actresses were auditioned. “Yeah, we were kind of getting worried,” says Ethan. “It’s funny, we saw some interesting girls, and it’s so important to get that role right. And you start convincing yourself that, ‘Oh this girl is good’ or ‘She’s interesting...’ And you sort of force yourself to think that would work, even when they are not perfect.  And then we met Hailee at kind of the eleventh hour and she was perfect. So that was a big relief, because then you can stop trying to convince yourself that Plan B is good enough.”

Bridges, of course, was more of a known quantity, having worked with the Coens on their biggest cult hit, 'The Big Lebowski'. They'd always wanted to cast him again and he was an obvious choice for Rooster Cogburn. "It’s really funny because it’s a very specific age and condition, not as specific as it is with the girl, where like two years either way means she’s wrong," continues Ethan. "But with Jeff, he’s great first of all. But he’s like old enough, fat enough. I mean, he’s not in perfect shape and you can’t have a perfect health, fitness and beauty, gym rat body because that would be wrong. But he also had to be robust enough to do the part because it’s demanding stuff."

A newcomer to the Coens' informal rep company is Matt Damon, who plays a Texas Ranger also on the trail of the killer. The brothers had always been impressed by his versatility, as Joel explains: "We had seen Matt in 'The Departed', where he was playing a character that wasn’t the classic 'Green Zone' character he does so well. He wasn’t the leading man or Bourne Identity guy. And I had met him years ago when he did a movie with my wife [Frances McDormand] and I liked it. It was a movie that Tommy Lee Jones directed, called 'The Good Old Boys'. He’s a guy that we’ve wanted to work with for a long time because he’s great, a very interesting actor."

As for 'True Grit' itself, it was the story's simplicity that attracted the Coens. "It’s just a girl going to avenge her father’s death," explains Ethan. "Like 'No Country For Old Men', it’s a simple story and it’s a pursuit story. They are going after the bad guy and it just seemed like promising material for a movie. It’s funny and it has really strong characters, particularly the young girl, who's this incredible character who refuses to give up."

The casting of Bridges gives us an excuse to discuss the much-loved 'The Big Lebowski' once again. History records that although it received a five-star review in Venue ("This is a film that succeeds on all levels," we enthused), most critics weren't so kind back in 1998 and it's only subsequently that the film acquired cult status and is now universally revered. "Yeah, it didn’t get great reviews and it opened kind of soft," laughs Joel. "They had no idea how to market it - they didn’t even know kind of who they were aiming the marketing at."

Of course, the Coens have famously never made a sequel to any of their films, though they've joked about following 'Barton Fink' with 'Old Fink'. But c'mon, it must be tempting to bring back The Dude. "I don’t think we’ll do that," says Joel, disappointingly. "We had entertained the notion, but not really seriously. We thought it might have been interesting to sort of set something with Walter, John Goodman’s character, in 'Big Lebowski 2: Operation Desert Storm'. John Goodman gets a job at Halliburton because they are over in Iraq. So it would be a period piece now because it would be 2003 and The Dude goes with him to Operation Iraqi Freedom."

"And somehow they get Smokey, who’s a pacifist bowler, to go over there, too," adds Ethan. "But we haven’t quite figured that out, and that’s why we haven’t written the script."

'TRUE GRIT' OPENS ON FRI 11 FEB.  
 

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