The Coen Brothers Claim "True Grit" Is Not A Western

The Coen brothers' latest film, True Grit, like the 1969 version starring John Wayne, is based on a novel by Charles Portis. This version, however, is far more faithful to its source, which is why Joel and Ethan Coen insist this film is not a remake. They also don't think of the film as a western, despite the time period, the locations, and the plot. We'll let them make their case.

Q: You've done a variety of genres -- why do a western?

EC: We were thinking about the novel more than doing a western.

JC: And we didn't really read the novel as a western. One of the things that struck us about it, that we took away from it, was how it was this youthful adventure story. A young adult adventure fiction, a sort of Perils of Pauline suspense, where there is this exhilaration of action, with one thing leading to another and another. That's how the novel feels to us. Maddie almost gets strangled, then she shoots a guy, then she falls into a pit with snakes, and then Rooster rides away with her until the horse dies. It's one thing after another.

EC: It's a western in the sense that we have guns and horses, but it's not a Zane Grey story. There's a lot of humor in the novel, which is what attracted us to it. We really wanted to keep what was funny about the book. That was important, and the formality of it, the flowery language, the foreign-sounding dialogue, the lack of contractions. You really feel that in the novel.

Q: How much of an influence was the 1969 John Wayne version, if at all?

EC: We didn't see the movie when it came out. We were just kids then, and we only vaguely remember it. So we weren't thinking in reference to the first movie. And we didn't change anything to distinguish ourselves from it.

JC: It's more beat for beat the novel, so anything that is the same in both movies is because it was in the novel that way.

Q: So what kind of research or preparation did you have to do?

EC: We left all the research to Charles Portis! He was steeped in the language, the culture, the weapons. He had to be, in order to write the novel in such a detailed way. So we were happy not to do any work we didn't have to. [Laughs]

Q: Surely there was other prep work particular to the film itself -- nailing down locations, for instance, since you didn't shoot where the story takes place.

EC: The pictoral idea of the movie would have been different in Arkansas. 

EC: We looked at Colorado and Utah, but New Mexico does have a lot of incentives to shoot there.

JC: It's a largely exterior movie, and we had to shoot in some difficult places.

EC: We knew we wanted snow in the movie. We wanted snow, but not too much snow. And we weren't sure Arkansas was reliable enough to get snow at that time of the year. So that was one of the considerations, why we moved.

JC: The weather was very uncooperative. So it was difficult to shoot in a short period of time, when we were fighting the weather, and dealing with a lot of other issues.

EC: But the landscape is a cheat. It's not really about being faithful to the novel to have that, but there are some things you can't mess with in this kind of film, and people want the landscape. Even though it's about the characters and not the landscape.

Q: But the look of the film is a big part of it, especially the shot where Jeff Bridges is riding with the reins in his teeth and shooting at the same time...

JC: There were things [cinematographer] Roger [Deakins] had to do, to be able to physically shoot this, and get the camera in certain places. All of that had to be broken down, and that was a complex thing, especially in uneven terrain.

EC: There are some places where we thought a lot about what it would look like, and other times, where we knew Roger would figure it out. [Laughs]