Try as they might, the Coen brothers can’t quite reconcile with the New Testament.
“True Grit,” their latest film and a recently announced nominee for the Best Picture Oscar, is one of their most Christianity-flecked works. Yet despite its open talk of grace and reverent use of the 1880s gospel hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” this is a movie devoid of redemption and rebirth. It’s deeply moral, to be sure, but that’s Old Testament stuff.
You can sense this hesitancy – this suspicion of grace – in almost all of Joel and Ethan Coen’s collaborations. When they aren’t nihilistic (“Blood Simple,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Burn After Reading”), the brothers’ movies issue harsh and lethal judgments (“Miller’s Crossing,” “Barton Fink,” “A Serious Man). True, each of these films flirts with grace – think of John Turturro’s Bernie pleading for his life, which is granted, in “Miller’s Crossing.” But the Coens’ version of grace rarely lasts. (Remember what happens to Bernie?) Time and again, the Coen brothers tiptoe toward the idea of restoration, then violently turn away. What’s holding them back?
Fear, perhaps. Believing in grace makes you vulnerable – vulnerable to disappointment when it doesn’t arrive as you expected, vulnerable to scorn when the skeptics weigh in. And in the Coens’ universe, the vulnerable are eaten alive.
Consider “True Grit,” in which a 14-year-old girl (Hailee Steinfeld) accompanies a grizzled U.S. marshal (Jeff Bridges) on a journey to avenge the man who killed her father. You would think the girl would be defenseless among these harsh lawmen and unscrupulous outlaws, but she’s the most ruthless figure in the film. She may be morally sincere – that’s why some critics, including Coen specialist Cathleen Falsani, have seen her as a redemptive figure – but her fixation on retribution brings about nothing but pain and death (even, in what is perhaps the movie’s most agonizing scene, to her horse).
Notice, in particular, how the Coens frame young Mattie’s moment of “triumph” (spoiler alert). When she shoots her father’s killer, the kickback from the gun sends her tumbling into a snake pit. She eventually escapes but is left - like so many retribution seekers in the movie - severely maimed. At the picture’s end, nearly every major character has been, as Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger puts it, “considerably diminished.”
And so we’re left where the Coens usually leave us: thoroughly entertained, yet also disturbed by the bleakness of a world with nothing but harsh morality propping it up. Grace notes in a Coen brothers’ film, be they the humming of a gospel hymn or the quoting of Scripture, are so far simply that – brief, tentative dollops. These vital, brilliant filmmakers seem intensely curious about grace, but their movies are unable to commit to it. The New Testament just isn’t their forte.
Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
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Comments (22)
Isn't this exactly the message of the New Testament? That grace will come not from within this world but from beyond it for those that persevere?
It is telling that the Coens remain true to Portis's fabulous book with Maddie left alone - unmarried and out of contact with Cogburn and LeBoeff - to the end. The world is a harsh and unforgiving place. What grace we receive comes from beyond us and within us. But certainly not from the world.
Mattie is surrounded by the opportunity for grace, just as the hymn-driven soundtrack surrounds her (but does not infuse her). Time after time, she is offered grace -- in this case, offered justice rather than vengeance. And time after time she chooses vengeance.
This is crystal clear in her first conversation with the sheriff. He suggests the best tracker, who also is apt to bring the quarry in alive as he believes that everyone deserves a fair trial (an opportunity for grace); Mattie barely listens to the offer, instead going for the gunman who is considered most ruthless.
Grace, the Coens seem to say, is freely offered; but grace is not forced on you. Mattie rejects grace, and as a direct consequence is thrown into a pit of vipers, sacrificing that which she hold most dear, and enduring her days alone and joyless.
It's ironic to me that so many have seen Maddie as a model of decency in an indecent world. In fact, she seeks angry vengence, not justice, and certainly not mercy for others. I think she ends as physically maimed as she begins morally corrupt.
She rejects justice repeatedly in search of the traction (the "true grit") she needs to have vengence her way ("why else am I paying but to have it my way?"). She is followed by a parade of corpses, and ultimately her choice for vengence lands her in a literal sheol. She is rescued by the mercy (and sacrificial death) of others, so the grace is there, but she remains more disfigured by her sins than transformed by the grace.
I think the book and film pity her, seing her as yet another spiritually disfigured person who mostly rejects grace in favor of self-reliance. The closing song of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arm" is a disturbing contrast to her amputation. It's very Psalmic: woe to those who depend on flesh, blessed are those whose help is the Lord.
If the Coens were in full-on despair, they would have just let her die in the pit, or better yet, have everyone die from their shootout wounds. Everyone dies, and deserves it. The end.
Maddie is a hard, stark character. The redemptive character in the story, if there is one, is Cogburn, who, hardbitten and mean though he be, softens to Maddie and ends up her protector and savior. But even his redemption is partial in that no lasting relationship emerges - though Maddie ultimately returns to him and honors his sacrifices and service at his death.
I find the story to be a real story rather than a mythic one that perhaps the author of this article is looking for. The story is one whose nuances and details we would not be surprised to see play out in real life - people are maimed, wounded, killed, betrayed, disappointed, forgotten; justice is thwarted, forestalled, delayed, denied. In it's reality, though, it delivers characters that show us determination, honor, duty, sacrifice, nobility,as well as pettiness, pride, and meanness.
I can't think of a more biblical picture of the world. One of the great truths of Scripture is that life is not a Disney story. We are not promised, after the Fall, a fairy tale existence. Our heroes will have feet of clay, as will we.