Post by joekiddlouischama on Mar 25, 2021 9:48:39 GMT
... definitely. Wayne's performance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (Ford, 1962) combines strength with subtlety and proves quite intricate, with the Duke achieving genuine pathos. And in The Searchers (Ford, 1956) and Red River (Hawks, 1948), he tests the limits and nature of heroism in ways that are quite daring. But Westerns historically received scarcely little Oscar attention, and Wayne was younger then. By 1969, he was aging, and his role in True Grit proved broadly comedic and thus lovably nonthreatening.
One might argue, though, that Wayne was at least as deserving of Academy attention for his performance in The Cowboys (Mark Rydell, 1972) a few years later. In one of the seventies' most memorable Westerns, he blends a more naturalistic form of "grit" with unsentimental vulnerability.