True Grit (1969) | IMDB v2.1

True Grit (1969) Mar 26, 2021 9:25:26 GMT

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Post by joekiddlouischama on Mar 26, 2021 9:25:26 GMT

Mar 25, 2021 14:20:51 GMT TheGoodMan19 said:

Mar 25, 2021 9:48:39 GMT joekiddlouischama said:

... 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.

The more "ambiguous", for lack of a better word, Wayne's character was in he film, the better the Duke's performance was. Red River, Liberty Valence, Searchers. He never went full out bad, like Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West. If Wayne had, I bet it would have been amazing.

... good point. When there was some aspect of the character that seemed to keep Wayne on his toes, so to speak, his performances could be intrinsically compelling and remarkably layered. Now, he was also very good at the more stock-in-trade role and could hold an otherwise forgettable film together on that basis—perhaps as well as anyone in history. In other words, he knew how to "entertain," but when challenged by the script and/or the director, Wayne was also capable of more.