[Marxism] True Grit
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It's unfortunate that the Coen Brother's play the kicking of American Indian children in the movie True Grit for laughs. It's even more unfortunate that liberal NYC audiences feel compelled to join in on the humor. But this is not new amongst NYC moviegoers. I was at a couple of Mae West flicks 10 years ago at the Film Forum. A couple of demeaning, racist lines were spewed at Mae's black maid. The audience erupted with laughter. My girlfriend at the time, from Bhopal, India realized at that moment how backwards many white folks in this city were. But many on the list already know all this. Also, I have to wonder if this release of laughter is easier because it takes place in a dark room where one's reactions can go unnoticed. As for the movie I found it rather predictable; and as usual the Coen's have no interest in the human condition, or what it means to be part of our species. At times I do enjoy their films though (No Country For Old Men, Miller's Crossing) but more for there exercise in formal rigor, and as a film worker I get something out of that. However I always feel a veil put up between their movies characters and the audience. Just my 2 cents. elb -- Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't offer an opinion on Deadwood.BUT Tom no no no-Fred McMurray gives the great performance that Wilder expected when he sought him for the role. He is not a heavy like the Bardiem character-he is a weak man open to deeply evil acts. The movie is a noir masterpiece and F M's performance is at its heart On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 3:46 AM, Tom Cod tomc...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == too bad this didn't work for the Coen Bros. I thought No Country for Old Men was excellent. When I first saw it on a plane I thought it actually was a movie from the 1970s that I had missed, they had captured the period so well and the heavy was convincing, not like say Fred McMurray in Double Indemnity for example. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/grega2728%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An excellent example of this lingo is the HBO series Deadwood in which the characters speak florid Victorian prose liberally spiced with the f word and other vulgarities. On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes, Louis. Fiction is literature, and neither of us had many conversations with those people...so we go on the basis of other things, such as how they wrote. And I'm sure that you've read much more of what they were writing than I have. See, I can write literature, too... :-) ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was an early booster of Deadwood and participated in the internet campaign slamming HBO for canceling the series (they admit if was their biggest mistake ever). The language of course was a big part of this show. It was liberally fictionalized with modern contemporary (vulgar, profane, pornographic, etc), terms often interspersed into the 19th Century linguistics spoken more in a Shakespearean sort of dialogue than Victorian. I thought this is what made the diolague so outstanding, in that the scenes were often written, and delivered, as the kind of dialogue one may of heard delivered at the Globe Theatre as opposed to American TV. What added to all this was the basic historical accuracy of the characters involved...not the way they were portrayed...that was fictional...but the actual course of the story arc which, while 'interpreted' by the writers, played out pretty much in real life...and death. I highly recommend that people on this list rent the DVDs of this remarkable, well acted, totally fascinating series. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I have not seen Deadwood and one reason is that I do not subscribe to HBO - but if the Deadwood tv show protrays Wild Bill Hickcock other than the Gay man that he was - then we have a continuation of the homophobic crap foisted previously - when ealier U. S. tv shows had portrayed lies about native people and that all western cowboys were heteros!!! His best female friend Calamity Jane was a noted shootist - but her Lesbianism was never acknowledged during or since that time. Bill Hickcock was murdered, shot in the back in Deadwood City, while playing cards - and the cards he held became known as the Deadman's Hand, because of his murder. Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:53:18 -0800 From: dwalters...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up To: causecollec...@msn.com == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was an early booster of Deadwood and participated in the internet campaign slamming HBO for canceling the series (they admit if was their biggest mistake ever). The language of course was a big part of this show. It was liberally fictionalized with modern contemporary (vulgar, profane, pornographic, etc), terms often interspersed into the 19th Century linguistics spoken more in a Shakespearean sort of dialogue than Victorian. I thought this is what made the diolague so outstanding, in that the scenes were often written, and delivered, as the kind of dialogue one may of heard delivered at the Globe Theatre as opposed to American TV. What added to all this was the basic historical accuracy of the characters involved...not the way they were portrayed...that was fictional...but the actual course of the story arc which, while 'interpreted' by the writers, played out pretty much in real life...and death. I highly recommend that people on this list rent the DVDs of this remarkable, well acted, totally fascinating series. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/causecollector%40msn.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok was portrayed by Keith Carradine, and his homosexuality was neither acknowledged nor denied. He is portrayed as a close friend of Calamity Jane, and is engaged by a wealthy and opium-addicted eastern lady, played by Molly Parker, to protect her mining interests.--Tom -Original Message- From: marxism-bounces+tgbias=ptd@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-bounces+tgbias=ptd@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of John Obrien Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 7:31 PM To: tgb...@ptd.net Subject: Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I have not seen Deadwood and one reason is that I do not subscribe to HBO - but if the Deadwood tv show protrays Wild Bill Hickcock other than the Gay man that he was - then we have a continuation of the homophobic crap foisted previously - when ealier U. S. tv shows had portrayed lies about native people and that all western cowboys were heteros!!! His best female friend Calamity Jane was a noted shootist - but her Lesbianism was never acknowledged during or since that time. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Mark me down as a fan of Deadwood as well...for all the reasons noted. The writing was exquisite and the cast superb. As with True Grit, it used an authentic vocabulary in a dialogue that was literary and played for effect. The vulgarity was likely some of the most authentic features of its language. For all of its innovativeness, I don't think the last century has added much at all to the vocabularity of profanity. I'm not an expert on this by any means, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of it was in place very early in the emergence of modern language. Linguists say that the terminology for body parts and bodily functions are among the first locked into place in the evolution of language. I don't know about Wild Bill, but Deadwood conveyed a lot of the sexual tensions and ambiguities in an overwhelmingly male only society. Nor did it have any problems portraying Calamity Jane's sexuality pretty clearly and quite sympathetically. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An entertaining source for the language common in Rooster Cogburn's milieu (and an utterly worthless source for history) are the writings of John N. Edwards, the Missouri ex-Confederate admirer of Quantrill and publicist for the James gang. Edwards was a drunken bigot who lived in a complete fantasy world, and his descriptions of the Civil War are essentially his effrorts to look through a largely alcohol-induced stupor to slap phrases cobbled from his classical or Elizabethan readings clumsily applied to what he thought was going on around him. I read Edwards in preparing my article on Jesse James, courtesy of Columbia's copious research library. Edwards might have been a drunk but he was a journalist. In fact, most journalists are drunks from what I can gather. True Grit is another story altogether. All the characters speak in that arch manner, a function not so much of how people spoke in that period but rather an attempt at kind of Dickensian rhetoric. All the characters in a Dickens novel, including the lowest kind of human being, speak in that well-educated, artificial manner. This is called literature. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes, Louis. Fiction is literature, and neither of us had many conversations with those people...so we go on the basis of other things, such as how they wrote. And I'm sure that you've read much more of what they were writing than I have. See, I can write literature, too... :-) ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] True Grit and Texas Rangers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Texas Rangers would have been a small percentage of the Confederate Army of the Trans Mississippi, which at peak strength may have reached 48,000. During the Mexican American War, the Texas Rangers were noted for their crimes against the Mexican people, including non combatants. A young regular army officer, George Meade, who later commanded Union forces at Gettysburg, described the Texans in Mexico, They have killed five or six innocent people walking in the street, for no other object than their own amusement..Their officers have no command or control over them. I would disagree with Meade on that last point, as their officers were participating and in fact leading the attacks on Mexican civilians. The US Army commander in North Mexico, Zachary Taylor was less than impressed with the Rangers. In a previous point, I mentioned the contradiction of the True Grit character Le Boeuf saying he had served with Kirby-Smith and in the Army of Northern Virginia. Mark pointed out that the Confederate commander in the west, Kirby-Smith had in fact served with the Army of Northern Virginia. I haven't been able to find any record of troops transferred with him. other than his immediate staff. I suppose I'll have to let this one go, as movie makers are fond of saying, we make movies not documentaries. OK. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit and Texas Rangers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I said that Kirby-Smith was in Virginia, not necessarily in the ANV. He passed the first part of the war in the Shenandoah valley and also commanded one of the big Confederate armies in Tennessee and Kentucky in ate 1862. My impression was that he was squeezed west by the demand of more politically connected generals for commands in the east. Nor do I recall saying anything about the Texas Rangers, though the scale of their operations, at that time, weren't limited to their own numbers. There were any number of very well-heeled paramilitary organizations in that age when Manifest Destiny remained largely a matter of private enterprises. Several of the rangers--especially down in the Rio Grande valley--were deeply engaged in an attempt to reignite a war with Mexico through the later 1850s. There were groups of hundreds of armed men there alone, operating at the discretion of the Rangers. They were also heavily involved in the attempt to save Kansas for slavery--which is how Bleeding Kansas came to bleed A lot of this was done under the aegis of what they called the Knights of the Golden Circle...which is a large part of next year's book from the U of Illinois Press There are stories about the KGC enforcing the political will of the Southern Rights Democrats as disguised night riders terrorizing unionists in the South. There's an 1861 account from Kentucky that's almost uncanny in its resemblance to the postwar Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. ...and it should be noted that kuklos is Greek for circle, so the Knights of the Ku Klux were certainly calling back to the Knights of the previous Circle. There's a DaVinci Code not worth dwelling upon :-) ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/25/10 11:00 PM, Mason Akhnaten wrote: Most Westerns feature violent bigots--as heroes and villains for that matter. Sometimes the heroes are saving relatively innocent townspeople from rich white land barons or protecting them from (generally Mexican) thugs. All too often, whatever historical basis for the film is white-washed--something Proyect says is somewhat excusable for Westerns during their heyday. But he's clear this is not acceptable today... Is there a specific year where movie studios must begin to make historically accurate feature films or have them condemned as failures? Why should anything like historical accuracy be expected out of fiction? Of course not. Trotsky loved Celine. I love Evelyn Waugh and much of VS Naipul. As well as John Ford and Howard Hawks westerns. But the Coen brothers are not in their league. They are clever fellows that have discovered a market niche for the smart set, the kind of people who fancy themselves hipsters for the modern age--in other words, those who worship at the altar of irony. Most of the time, I can put up with their shtick but I couldn't get True Grit down my craw. It was like one of those stunts on Fear Factor, where you have to eat worms or cockroaches. If worms and cockroaches turn you on, be my guest. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Interesting stuff. A lot of my mother's family were living in SW Missouri at the time and were strongly pro-Lincoln and anti-slavery. I'd be curious if they knew Mr. Kelso and might have fought with him. Some of my mother's family came from the Arkansas Ozarks; from what I can gather, they hiked up to Indiana to join the Union army, and nearly all of them died, either from combat or disease. The one of my mother's ancestors who returned was a great-grandfather who was a medical doctor and spent the war in field hospitals. You can just imagine the suffering he witnessed. Just in relation to the language: if you read the letters from that period, you realize that they really did express themselves differently than we do. Victorian language really was 35-word sentences, perfectly composed. Shortly before the publication of his historical novel Cloudsplitter (about John Brown), Russell Banks (my favorite living writer) gave a reading in Princeton, which I attended. He talked about how did the research for the book, which included reading a lot of letters, and he described how differently people in the mid-19th century wrote and talked, and also what they read. For example, a typical farmhouse in John Brown's time might have included two or three books. One would inevitably be the King James version of the Bible; most likely the second would be Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, and if there were a third it would likely be a collection of Shakespeare. A country doctor would also have Grey's Anatomy. The HBO series Deadwood, which was about the gold rush in the Black Hills of South Dakota in the late 1870s, attempted to recreate some of that language, even though the popular impression is that the only word in the show's dialogue was cocksucker. For example, everyone referred to the miserable excuse for a road as a thoroughfare. The hotel owner also referred to George Hearst's Black servant as an Ethiope. Hearst, played by Gerald McRaney, called her my nigger cook. Whether people actually talked the way they wrote we can probably never know, but the series's writers attempted to create the dialogue based on how people in Victorian times wrote letters, and they wrote A LOT of letters. Tom -Original Message- From: marxism-bounces+biastg=embarqmail@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-bounces+biastg=embarqmail@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Mark Lause Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2010 1:47 AM To: Thomas Bias Subject: Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbuga response. == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Just up the line in southwest Missouri, John Russell Kelso was an Ohio born schoolteacher on the eve of the Civil War. A college man and up on all the latest ideas of the wider world When the war broke out, secessionist guerrillas (like the fictional Rooster Cogburn) began butchering his unionist neighbors, so Kelso organized local militia into small groups that could deal with them. Wild Bill Hickok came out these unionist bands down there, and the Lost Causers in that part of the world still malign them for having been so ruthlessly efficient. His men later told stories about how he'd stake out an ambush, pull out his firearm and a Latin grammar book...so he could practice his subjunctive, I guess, before he'd have to start shooting. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Tom Bias: Just in relation to the language: if you read the letters from that period, you realize that they really did express themselves differently than we do. Victorian language really was 35-word sentences, perfectly composed. It has to be understood that the Coens appropriated the words from Portis's novel that Mattie Ross speaks. By all accounts, Portis wrote a highly stylized comic novel in which the barococo utterances of the 14 year old girl were meant to be amusing. I found them tedious, but that's just me. Years ago I took a writer's workshop class at NYU where the teacher, a third-rate spy novelist named Roy Doliner, recounted a trial in which James Jones's sergeant demanded compensation for being slandered in From Here to Eternity. He asserted that although the name was changed, it was obvious to everybody, so he claimed, that he and the novel's character were identical. Jones's lawyer then asked him to take the stand and began to draw him out on this question as well as a number of others that would make sure that the jury had a fix on him. He then began reading from the novel those sections in which the sergeant (played by Burt Lancaster in the movie) spoke. It was so obvious that the character was almost completely an invention by Jones based on the differences between the real and fictional characters' speech that the jury found Jones innocent of all charges. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] True Grit
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I would have to disagree with David's position that in the original version of True Grit,Glen Campbell did a better job of playing LeBoeuf than did Damon. The low point of the original 1969 was Glen Campbell's so called acting. Mad magazine was unable to resist the opportunity to satirize Mattie's long grammatically correct sentences. Regardless of John Wayne's horrendous politics I think he gave an academy award winning performance of the over the hill one eyed fat man marshall. The one historical slip up both versions made was LeBoeuf's Civil War service. He says he served in Shreveport with Kirby-Smith, and then later mentions in the Army of Northern Virginia. Shreveport is in Lousiana and Kirby-Smith commanded the Confederate Army of the Trans Mississippi, whose command was, as the name implies, west of the Mississippi River. While that was the error of author Charles Portis, that should have been caught by the movie makers. Is there any historical evidence of any US Marshall having killed 23 men during a 4 year period? That seems a bit over the top. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I would be surprised if some of the marshall's didn't wrack up those kinds of numbers, though they may not have counted them. Judge Parker was the hanging judge who was allowed to impose his harsh version of the law at Fort Smith because the war left a virtual chaos in the Indian Territory. Federal officials regularly went out into the territory and functioned with very little concern that anybody would restrict their activities Btw, there were Texas units in the Army of Northern Virginia and Edmund Kirby-Smith was out there before getting transferred to west. Shreveport was his headquarters from that point. Getting sent from Virginia to Texas was a bit like drawing Northern Ireland as an assignment, I suspect... This was true on both sides, of course... ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] True Grit? Humbug.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Call me incorrigibly dogmatic and a “politically correct” bore, but I just can’t get on the bandwagon for the Coen brothers’ “True Grit”, their latest film that has earned high plaudits across the board, even from the curmudgeonly Armond White who wrote: This view of the Western’s brutality challenges recent cultural standards regarding violence and sarcasm as established by Quentin Tarantino. Now, True Grit is no longer just a tall tale; it clarifies the Coens’ feelings about violence and America’s spiritual history. Well, I am not sure about the Coen brothers’ feelings about much of anything. Mostly they are content to produce black comedic yarns, sometimes hitting (“Fargo”, “Blood Simple”, sometimes missing (“A Serious Man”, “No Country for Old Men”.) I confess that I was prejudiced from the start, having had an extreme reaction against the original “True Grit” that starred Vietnam War hawk John Wayne in 1969. Looking back at Vincent Canby’s NY Times review that year, there is absolutely no reference to the war in Vietnam and John Wayne’s filthy role in promoting it through television appearances and his truly awful propaganda film “The Green Berets”. Most critics agreed with Canby’s assessment and the Academy gave John Wayne an award for best actor as Rooster Cogburn, motivated in part by recognition that the old buzzard did not have long to live after having lost one lung to cancer. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/true-grit-humbug/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == When I saw version I of True Grit I liked it immensely never having seen John Wayne play someone not 10 feet tall and altogether altruistic...even in the Green Berets, the pro-war, a-historical nonsense fable of the role of the Special Forces in Vietnam, it was a laughable role. I was also about 13 when that came out. I always thought the condensation toward Wayne from Hollywood was for his role in the Shootist, played opposite Kathleen Hepburn, where Wayne truly played his cancer-ridden self. Interestingly, Wayne converted to Catholicism on his death bed. Odd, that. Having read the original novel True Grit this version was closer, it seemed, to the novel than the first version with Wayne. It was...grittier...to say the least, being more Coen brothers than Disney, which the Wayne movie was with the sappy music. I thought Hailee Steinfeld's performance was as good as it could be from a 14 year old actor. She stole the show, quite honestly, and did so far better than Kim Darby's version of the Ross girl. Her bargaining with a horse trader in town is almost worth seeing the movie for this reason alone. Though no fault of his own, the Lebouf character played by Matt Dameon was, IMO, terrible...never quite establishing what the 'character' of the character was supposed to be. He seemed poorly directed by whatever Coen brother was in charge that day. Glen Cambell actually played him better in 1969 that Damon, a real actor, played him in this film. I also thought it rather cheap (as in cheap laughs) the Cogburn's character's rough treatment of the Native American kids sitting out in front of the house that Louis describes in his review. Racist? Probably. True to character? Absolutely. Louis, however, fails to explain Cogburn's anger at these children in his review: they were torturing a horse with sharp stick as he and Matty rode up on them. I suspect his attitude toward this kids would be the same had they been white. Unlike Louis, I go into any movie with the view of watching the film of what the movie *itself* is trying to show me, with little expectations, and as little prejudice as possible. I couldn't care less, nor would I let it color my view of a movie because of the *politics* of the actor involved. I loved the Jesse Stone mini-series of detective shows on CBS despite Tom Selleck's pimping for National Review and Ronald Reagan. Don't care. Never will. Lastly, I don't even own a DVD player. I see movies the way they were meant to be seen: on a BIG screen, with lots of people in the theatre. I know Louis is a kind of professional online movie reviewer, gets free movies in the mail (he once wrote here) and envy him for that, in a way. But I remember the discussion around Avatar and couldn't help but wonder, never did ask, if he watched this in the theatre or at home? Movies, *especially* Westerns, should be seen on big movie screens. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/25/10 6:15 PM, DW wrote: I also thought it rather cheap (as in cheap laughs) the Cogburn's character's rough treatment of the Native American kids sitting out in front of the house that Louis describes in his review. Racist? Probably. True to character? Absolutely. Louis, however, fails to explain Cogburn's anger at these children in his review: they were torturing a horse with sharp stick as he and Matty rode up on them. I suspect his attitude toward this kids would be the same had they been white. Interesting. I missed this while watching the movie, which admittedly required toothpicks under my eyelids to focus on. However, the causality is suspect nonetheless. The idea of Indian children torturing horses is first of all inconsistent with their culture and history. Plus, you don't put that into a movie (or novel) without seeking to make a point. That point being, I imagine, that everybody is shitty. Unlike Louis, I go into any movie with the view of watching the film of what the movie *itself* is trying to show me, with little expectations, and as little prejudice as possible. I couldn't care less, nor would I let it color my view of a movie because of the *politics* of the actor involved. I loved the Jesse Stone mini-series of detective shows on CBS despite Tom Selleck's pimping for National Review and Ronald Reagan. Don't care. Never will. That's fine. This is a free country, after all. Lastly, I don't even own a DVD player. I see movies the way they were meant to be seen: on a BIG screen, with lots of people in the theatre. Most of the movies I get in November or December are things I am just not interested in, like True Grit or Inception so the idea of going to a theater to check out True Grit with an unbiased eye is out of the question. I am going to be 66 in January and feel entitled to my prejudices. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For my part, I just loved it, but I'll restrict myself to just a few comments as just back from the movie. From the start, I found myself in jaw-dropping wonder that they had every found any place that looked as much as Fort Smith did in the period portrayed. And the building where Judge Parker held court could have been the real site...which is in the National Park there today. Rooster Cogburn's charge against the four desperados was one of the most memorable scenes in any western, but John Wayne was firing with a rifle in one hand. Jeff Bridges did a proper Missouri charge...reigns in the teeth and six-guns blazing. The original would have had another pair on the saddle and maybe a third pair in the boots to save on the reloading. But Hailee Steinfeld's performance as Mattie Ross (and I did like Kim Darby's) stole the show. She did this remarkably gutsy character full justiceand, most assuredly, there certainly were people like that ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/25/10 8:29 PM, Mark Lause wrote: But Hailee Steinfeld's performance as Mattie Ross (and I did like Kim Darby's) stole the show. She did this remarkably gutsy character full justiceand, most assuredly, there certainly were people like that You mean people who speak in fully-formed 35 word sentences filled with archaisms? I found this tiresome almost immediately. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 21:01:03 -0500 Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: You mean people who speak in fully-formed 35 word sentences filled with archaisms? That would be me. -- -- Michael J. Smith m...@smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I must have seen True Grit, along with countless other Westerns, before the age of 13. My father was born in 45 and grew up with countless TV Westerns, my mother's mother danced with John Wayne. Of course, I saw them all on a small screen--and I have significant doubts that my opinion on individual films or the genre as a whole would be much different if I saw them on a large screen: Cat Balou remains my favorite Western. Nothing like drunken antics of Lee Marvin. Most Westerns feature violent bigots--as heroes and villains for that matter. Sometimes the heroes are saving relatively innocent townspeople from rich white land barons or protecting them from (generally Mexican) thugs. All too often, whatever historical basis for the film is white-washed--something Proyect says is somewhat excusable for Westerns during their heyday. But he's clear this is not acceptable today... Is there a specific year where movie studios must begin to make historically accurate feature films or have them condemned as failures? Why should anything like historical accuracy be expected out of fiction? I don't know a single person over the age of 13 that thinks the Western genre--including recent offerings--has much historical accuracy whatsoever. More to the point, I don't know anyone who would expect historical accuracy from a Western film. The only people I know who expect historical accuracy in all of their entertainment are leftists (thank God, not all leftists). Be it Westerns (True Grit) or comedy (Daily Show with Jon Stewart), it is amazing how many people--on this list alone--seem to expect not only historical accuracy but radical commentary out of their mass entertainment. QUOTE: Back in the 1970s, Peter Camejo spent a couple of evenings at my apartment in Houston when he was on tour. Digging through my records, he found something by The Band. Picking it up like it was a dog turd, he looked at me with a sour expression and asked how I could possibly own a record with a song like “The Night They Burned Old Dixie Down” on it, a song that mourned the passing of the slavocracy in effect. At the time, I wondered if Peter was overdoing things. Bless his soul, he was right. These are awful expectations for entertainment. You shouldn't listen to a band because the politics of one particular song? Sorry, but Cripple Creek is a goddamn good tune, despite Robertson writing Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Should we kiss off Dylan for performing with these folks? It is dangerous to expect historical accuracy or radical critique from entertainment. Dangerous because you will miss out on vast amounts of high and popular culture: from Pound's poetry and Pirandello's plays to that generally awful genre--the 'war' movie. It is NOT up to art or entertainment to offer a radical critique. I include art or high culture because many people on the left expect high culture to also offer a radical critique. Tell that to the poet and playwright named above...There can indeed be moving words in the works of Conrad, one can tap toes to The Band, perhaps True Grit (and its remake) can be entertaining to certain audiences. There should not be a fear amongst radicals over admitting something is a work of art (like Conrad) or that less-than-radical forms of entertainment (True Grit/Daily Show/Bridge Over the River Kwai) can indeed be entertaining/funny/moving despite stopping short (in the case of Jon Stewart) or flagrantly rewriting history (Westerns and war films). It is great to engage with or critique forms of entertainment that are historically inaccurate or stop short of radicalism. It is important for Marxists to form critiques of these forms of entertainment individually, in my opinion. But all too often, these critiques strongly come down against any possible entertainment value because it lacks historical accuracy or sufficient radicalism for the particular critic. Achebe's reading of Conrad leaps to mind--in the future, it may be Camejo and The Band. I am generally interested in Coen Brothers films and looked forward to reading your review...The Big Lebowski is the funniest film ever made. As Proyect says, Fargo and Blood Simple are good black comedies. Unfortunately, the only information I get from the review on their newest film is historically inaccurate. Pardon my informality, but man, a review based around historical inaccuracy is a no duh for the entire genre, the same for war films. If you are going to write a review based on historical information, you may as well get into the detailed history of the Texas Rangers that was avoided. Which leads me to The Green Berets. Not only is this film grossly inaccurate, it is a bad film. True Grit was grossly inaccurate, starred a hawk, and was a cut
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Ah...a real discussion, excellent. I'm curious as to this point made by Louis ...fully-formed 35 word sentences. Well, of course, a good monologue is fun regardless of it's accuracy if it is well deliveredand these 35 plus word sentences certainly were...my question, to Mark perhaps as the discussion historians (nice point about the Missouri charge BTW) was over the lack of use of contractions in speaking. I notice that in a lot of renditions of the period, Westerns, movies taking place in the 19th Century, *especially* as they were spoken by women, that they never seemed to use contractions unless they were Calamity Jane types. This what made the Matti Ross character's long winded diatribes during the negotiations scene so cool...not ain't or can't or won't. Is this at all historically accurate, linguistically speaking? David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Dec 25, 2010, at 6:01 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: You mean people who speak in fully-formed 35 word sentences filled with archaisms? I found this tiresome almost immediately. Is it related to your marxism? martin Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] True Grit? Humbug....a response.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The question of speech is interesting. What people often forget is that you can find people as educated in their middle class in their language someplace in the west as you'd find just about anywhere...and they were interacting regularly with people who might speak in the crudest venaculars. And, in that period, they interacted well enough on the level of stark brutality, especially in that area. Just up the line in southwest Missouri, John Russell Kelso was an Ohio born schoolteacher on the eve of the Civil War. A college man and up on all the latest ideas of the wider world When the war broke out, secessionist guerrillas (like the fictional Rooster Cogburn) began butchering his unionist neighbors, so Kelso organized local militia into small groups that could deal with them. Wild Bill Hickok came out these unionist bands down there, and the Lost Causers in that part of the world still malign them for having been so ruthlessly efficient. His men later told stories about how he'd stake out an ambush, pull out his firearm and a Latin grammar book...so he could practice his subjunctive, I guess, before he'd have to start shooting. Kelso was very active in Republican politics from the initial split in the party over emancipation. In 1864, he ran for Congress as an uncompromising radical. Some of his speeches survive and reflect a real grasp of the philosophical and constitutional arguments. What's remarkable is that he must have composed these while he was still in the bush Kelso had no interest in reelection, having sought election to do one thing--make emancipation national--but he remained a confirmed radical, even when the party, from his perspective, moved away from his wartime positions. (By 1872, Kelso supported the idea of the Women's, Negroes' and Workingmen's ticket with Victoria Woodhull and Frederick Douglass, and described himself by the late 1890s and early 1890s as an anarchist.) ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
