Owning the original, and having looked forward to seeing the new version, I find myself wondering why the Coens rewrote the script to have LaBoeuf live, instead of following the original script and letting him die of the blow to the head administered by Chaney, after guiding his horse to pull Cogburn and Mattie from the snake pit. His death makes the outcome of the journey more bleak - the attempt to bring Chaney to justice costs yet another life - and makes Cogburn's rescue of Mattie especially urgent. It gave extra texture to what had seemed like amusing superficiality in Glenn Campbell's original performance. I wondered whether star-status made the Coens, or their money-men, think "we can't kill Damon off - his public wouldn't accept it." Result: LaBoeuf's presence becomes mere comic relief, and this version of the film is weakened.
I wish Tommy Lee Jones had been given the part rather than Jeff Bridges. Anyone who's seen Lonesome Dove or In the Valley of Elah (or No Country for Old Men) knows that Jones would have made a brilliant Cogburn, free of the Dude-ish baggage which burdens Bridges.
And I wish also that the Coens had used that boarding-house scene from the original in which Mattie, after all her pugnacious bravery, at the livery stable and with Cogburn, cradles her dead father's pocket watch and weeps, becoming a little girl again. Kim Darby made that moment real, and it lent extra power to her resolve when Cogburn and LaBoeuf tried later to ditch her. The Coens let Hailee Steinfeld look sad, but mere sadness isn't enough, and the opportunity was lost.
Much to appreciate and think about in the look of this version, but some sense of the opportunities missed.
I wish Tommy Lee Jones had been given the part rather than Jeff Bridges. Anyone who's seen Lonesome Dove or In the Valley of Elah (or No Country for Old Men) knows that Jones would have made a brilliant Cogburn, free of the Dude-ish baggage which burdens Bridges.
And I wish also that the Coens had used that boarding-house scene from the original in which Mattie, after all her pugnacious bravery, at the livery stable and with Cogburn, cradles her dead father's pocket watch and weeps, becoming a little girl again. Kim Darby made that moment real, and it lent extra power to her resolve when Cogburn and LaBoeuf tried later to ditch her. The Coens let Hailee Steinfeld look sad, but mere sadness isn't enough, and the opportunity was lost.
Much to appreciate and think about in the look of this version, but some sense of the opportunities missed.