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*** SPOILERS, OF COURSE***
By which I mean the nighttime race to get Maddie help. I wish they had held the closeup, slow shot of their faces in the night a little longer than they did. It looked fantastical, almost science fiction-like, but to good use, re-establishing the mythology of the west. And just stunning for my tastes.
Up to that point I really enjoyed the film. As with others, if I were to nitpick, having just watched the old version last week, there were some comic moments that, knowing the Coens, I would have liked for them to revisit and rewrite. The exchange between Maddie and the pony guy, while good in this one, was longer and perhaps better in the first. I also preferred how Le Boeuf met Maddie in the first one compared to this.
But I stand corrected, it seems clear to me that they did not revisit the first film at all; without having read the novel, I assume the significant changes they made, including the bookend conclusion, showed a fidelity to the novel.
Acting was superb.
Re: race--we get a far more racist Cogburn this time around than in the first film. Interestingly, I guess, but I also assume these were in the novel, so not so interesting, except for how these scenes disturb the viewer's identification with Maddie's own identification with Cogburn.
I actually think gender is more interesting in the film--here's a question: did anyone else think that it looked as if in the last scene before the bookend, when Cogburn fell to the ground with Maddie in his arms, unable to make it all the way to the cabin, that when he slumped over, he was angled to *kiss* her? I forget the voiceover at that moment, but I remember it might have implied a certain kind of feeling. And they cut away just before anything was revealed.
I do think it's intentionally ambiguous. It would parallel Le Boeuf's own incestuous moment earlier on, when he thought about kissing her. It's also striking that in the bookend, she confesses that she never married, which could suggest a certain kind of feeling toward Cogburn. So she lost her father and then her surrogate father / lover.
Which actually takes away from the "feminist" overtones of the film. Hers is the kind of feminism that measures itself up according to masculinity--her name is somewhat androgynous, she takes her father's place, wears his clothes, inherits his rifle and saddle, is distant and tough even at his coffin, etc. And she rides alongside Cogburn and Le Boeuf. It's a feminist tale in this regard--obviously, she is the one displaying the true grit.
But it seems to me that if we take seriously the incestuous narrative, which seems transgressive in a way that the Coens play up and the original doesn't, the transgression actually diminishes or works against the feminist reading of the story. Because if it is a love story, then she is returned to her supportive role, whether as wife, daughter, or sidekick. Her triumph is diminished by the loss of men and emptiness. The film ends not with celebration, but loss, mourning, and lack of fulfillment.
I guess there could be a certain kind of feminine grit revealed in this way, which isn't really equivalent to feminism, and it wouldn't be quite as radical as her transvestism, which isn't that radical these days, either.
PS. I'm not saying the novel or either film is trying to be feminist, and I'm certainly not reducing the aesthetic pleasure of the story and imagery to politicking. Just pondering some of the interpretive dilemmas at stake when certain cultural questions are raised. It's a gorgeous film, especially the last thirty minutes.
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