True Grit
Well, it finally happened. I was discussing movies with some of my younger co-workers earlier this week and one of them mentioned that he had seen the Coen Brother’s adaptation of True Grit over the weekend starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin. He gave it a pretty good review and then commented that he now wants to see “the original” to which another co-worker replied “I didn’t know there was an original.” There it was and it landed with a thud. The fact that this young co-worker (who is bright and culturally aware) didn’t realize there was an “original” version of the movie kind of left me feeling like I had been lapped at the latest NASCAR race and what knowledge had come before me mattered naught. It made me wonder how many other things might be missed with the passage of time and generations, like the fact that the two movies were actually based on a brilliant novel written by Charles Portis and published in 1968; and more so, how (with this same passage of time) the big screen might be stealing away opportunities to get up-close-and-personal with the written word. In the case of the novel, the New York Times Book Review called it “skillfully constructed, a comic tour de force,” and Jeff Bridges even commented that one shouldn’t “study the movie” but instead read the book to gain “more insight into the characters and the story.” I applaud him for that. And in defense of my co-worker who didn’t realize that the Coen Brothers’ film was a remake, I have every confidence that since he is so curious by nature that he’ll be tapping into the novel in no time flat. Anyone else who wants to experience writing by an author who has risen to a type of cult status might want to turn a few pages of the original, too!