This film critic isn’t qualified to assess the authenticity of the new Coen brothers film “True Grit.”
So let’s let Tom Noel, a professor of western history at the University of Colorado-Denver, have a crack at it.
Noel, who’s written 40 books on Colorado and the West, says while he misses the original’s San Juan Mountain setting, the new version more accurately captured “the slothful reality of frontier life.”
The modern “Grit” stays closer to the 1968 novel by Charles Portis. It also avoids the harsh language uttered in some modern western yarns, he says. The HBO series “Deadwood” may be best known for its salty repartee between the main characters, but it doesn’t reflect the real tone of the period.
“If 19th century westerners had really used such language, their mothers would have washed their mouths out with soap,” Noel says.
(Photo: Hailee Steinfeld stars as the scrappy teen Mattie in the 2010 film “True Grit.” Photo credit: Lorey Sebastian, Paramount Pictures)
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I agree with Tom Noel, the authentic period look and feel of the movie is what helped to win me over. Add in that I ride, am a gun affecianado and enjoy period pieces and this movie had it all right with the proper saddles, guns and gear used by all the characters involved. Lucky Ned Pepper and his badly healed lip and bad teeth showed the outlaw life more than the clothes he wore or the words he spoke.