But True Grit is about the uselessness, and even dangers, of such symbolic attribution and meaning-making. There is no such thing as a human-like animal. In True Grit , giving an animal human qualities or even worse, giving a human, human qualities only causes pain and hinders survival. Emotions and sensations such as nostalgia and love, and abilities to perceive complex qualities such as pathos, are endlessly destructive.
From the moment she begins to speak, Mattie is represented as a formidable force in an environment in which she would otherwise be greatly ignored. She holds her own in several deals and conversations, but it is when she conducts the re-sale of the ponies that she demonstrates her tremendous intelligence, economic acumen, and ability to defend herself against a peculiar variety of predator.
The man with whom she negotiates, Colonel Stonehill, does not directly cheat her, but also does not, for a long time, cooperate with her—and thus, he joins the legions of adults in this film who do Mattie wrong.
Mattie, however, enters his shop and pushes him to make a deal, in the first place, calmly and brightly arguing with him until she gets her way. She confuses and intimidates him, wearing down until he gives in. Her triumphs mean something to us, and they mean all the more when her calculations and pluck lead her to an emotional connection.
Enter the horse. Instead of being nervous, though, on the rearing and kicking animal, she grins again, calmly sitting each buck and instead encouraging the pony, gleefully naming him as she does so, and asking the stableboy what he likes to eat for treats.
Both Mattie and Little Blackie dislike being taken for a ride, so to speak, but Blackie calms down, presumably because she does not kick him with spurs or smack his flank with a crop, and instead encourages his kind of behavior. Mattie has the same spunkiness and stubbornness—but, as reflected in the horse, it seems that her personality will only seem unpleasant or disagreeable to those who do not know how to handle her.
For a while, the film encourages this overlap, of girl and horse, representing their bravery and spunk as collaborative. A few scenes later, when they saddle up to chase Rooster and LeBoeuf who have left without her , Mattie and Little Blackie have to race all the way to the river. She and Little Blackie gallop towards the river, and, as she loudly coaxes him, he jumps in without any resistance. But rather than acknowledging that Mattie has proven herself worthy to accompany Rooster and LeBoeuf, LeBoeuf drags Mattie out of her saddle to beat her for what her perceives as her insolence—hitting, and eventually whipping her with a stick, which in length resembles a riding crop.
LeBoeuf views Mattie competitively and insecurely, understanding her headstrong and tough personality as a personal insult to him. Not only does his method of punishing her, with the stick, unite Mattie to a horse, once more, but it also illuminates that LeBoeuf does not value Mattie for what separates her from all of the other humans in the film—her doggedness, spirit, and unrelenting determination. LeBoeuf, an idiot and a bully, represents human faculties gone wrong, and for a while the film suggests he will pay for this, while Mattie will triumph.
The posse—Rooster, LeBoeuf, and Mattie—are all revealed to care about horses. LeBoeuf, who rides a strawberry appaloosa, loudly trumpets the abilities of his steed. And Rooster goes out of his way to save one. On the porch of a cabin that they pass, two young boys are torturing a scared donkey. Rooster, disgusted, cuts the donkey free, allowing it to run away, before physically kicking the boys off the porch.
There is so much human-animal empathy, and the perpetual suggestion of a kind of goodness inherent in the animal. While killing Tom Cheney towards the end of the film, the recoil of the rifle she fires springs her backwards into a hole, at the bottom of which there is a defensive snake who attacks her. They ride from the late afternoon deep into the night, and the little horse, wheezing but running furiously almost as if he understands what is at stake takes them almost as far as they need.
He begins to make pained noises, and Mattie begins to cry and beg Rooster not to work her horse so hard. Rooster refuses, and kicks Little Blackie with his spurs, and the horse bolts forward, even more.
This boost, however, cannot keep him going for long, and he collapses. They are both sweating, crying out, breathing hard, close to death. He falls to the ground, Cogburn pulls himself and Mattie out from underneath the lathered, lifeless horse and commandeers a wagon from a nearby party of travelers. After Mattie is bitten in the pit , Cogburn jumps on Little Blackie with Mattie in his arms and rides for help.
Cogburn runs Little Blackie until the pony's legs give out from under him and he falls down dead mid-stride.
Dollor :The iconic sorrel with a wide blaze made his movie debut in one of John Wayne's most memorable scenes; he's the horse carrying Rooster Cogburn during his famous charge—reins in his teeth and guns blazing—in True Grit Mattie Ross in the adaptation. Mattie, in the end, achieves her goal of killing Tom Chaney, thus avenging her father's murder.
In the remake she kills Chaney with LaBoeuf Sharpe's Carbine, though she is bitten by a rattlesnake and loses her arm after failing down a mineshaft due to the recoil.
Both the Coen brothers' "True Grit" and the Henry Hathaway-directed original were adaptations of the same source material: the eponymous novel by Charles Portis. But, even though "True Grit" is not based on a true story per se , that doesn't mean it didn't take from real life in many significant ways. Films with female leads sometimes end this way.
Though he never owned Dollor, his contract with the owner stipulated that he would be the only one to ride him. Parents need to know that the Coen brothers' adaptation of Charles Portis' novel -- which also inspired the John Wayne classic -- is impressive and forceful, but it's also full of brutal and sometimes bloody gunfight sequences and other violent moments that aren't appropriate for younger viewers, as well as some Already trained in English horseback riding, she adapted to the Western style so she could do most of her own riding for the film.
Those were the two main things I had to learn," Steinfeld said. James Lee Burke: But she would do it all over again. The price she paid was not for shooting Tom Chaney, or ensuring that eventually he was trapped by these circumstances that caused his death.
She paid the price for her principles. It's always fun to revisit classic scenes from epic novels, especially out loud. This scene captures the indomitable spirit of the novel's young heroine, Mattie Ross, and her trusty pony, Little Blackie.
After Mattie shoots Tom Chaney, the man who murdered her father, she stumbles back into a dark pit filled with venmous snakes. Mattie is close to despair. Suddenly, Rooster Cogburn, her true partner-in-crime and infamous outlaw sheriff, discovers her and lowers himself into the pit. The scene is telling in how it showcases the dire straits Mattie finds herself in all because of her obsession to revenge her father's death.
And let's not forget the voice of award-winning author, Donna Tartt, who reads an excerpt that brings Portis's words to life.
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