Violence in "True Grit"

NOTE: This post contains very mild spoilers from True Grit. If you’re waiting to see that movie, you may want to skip this post.

I watched the 2010 version of True Grit with some of my family yesterday after watching the 1969 version last week in preparation. One of the most prominent differences between the two films was the approach to violence. In his review of the film on Focus on the Family’s Plugged In Online, Paul Asay writes that the 2010 version, which was created by the Coen brothers, is “more violent” than the original.*

I think he’s wrong. The new film is no more violent than the old film; it’s just bloodier. If you compare the events of the original (which, by the way, is rated G—a rating that still meant “all ages admitted” in the '60s) with the events of the new film (rated PG-13), they’re almost exactly the same. The Coens simply don’t share the sensitivities of the 1960s in their presentation of those events.

For example: in both films, one man chops off the fingers of another and is then shot. In the 1969 film, it all happens very quickly and with very little blood spilled. In the 2010 film, the scene is very raw and gruesome: we see the knife sever the fingers, we see the gun fired into the man’s face (leaving a large, bloody bullet wound), we see blood splashed onto the gunman’s face, and then we see a shot of the severed fingers in a pool of blood on the table. Needless to say, it’s all very difficult to watch.

In other words, there’s the same amount of violence in each film: the same number of people die, and the same wounds are inflicted. But in the 2010 film, we feel the violence much more. It's not glamorous, and we have to stare at it and comprehend it. We take everything that happens much more seriously because the stakes are much higher.

In all honesty, I prefer the Coens’ raw approach to violence. Walk with me through the comparison I’m about to make, because it may be a stretch, and it’s certainly a work in progress: One of the main reasons pornography is so toxic is that it gives someone a cheap substitute for sexual intimacy that is entirely alien to God’s plan for holy sexuality. Any couple in a healthy marriage relationship will tell you that marriage is a lot of work but that sex within the context of a marriage becomes something much deeper and more profound than a physical act. Pornography removes the commitment and the work—and, subsequently, the deeper and more profound components of sexuality. Pornography becomes desensitizing.

Still with me? Here’s where I’m going: people watch movies for a temporary escape from reality and an emotional ride, even if the emotions involved are simply exhilaration and happiness. You can experience stronger emotions within the span of a good 2-hour movie than you may experience in an entire year of real life. I cried when I watched Pixar’s Up, and it was one of the few times that I shed a tear that entire year. I don’t think this escape is a bad thing or a problem, but I don’t want us to become desensitized to the content of our entertainment. When I watch the 1969 True Grit, I get a thrill from watching Rooster Cogburn gun down a bad guy, and the cartoonish violence prevents me from recognizing what a gruesome, brutal act it is. It's a win-win for me: I don't have to deal with tricky ethical questions about his actions (or the negative consequences), and I'm exhilarated because the events on the screen are so much more momentous than those in my daily life. But when I watch the same scene in the 2010 True Grit, that thrill is dampened because I'm conscious of how gruesome the action was. Suddenly, it's not as fun.**

I’m writing this simply because I don’t want us to fall into the trap of thinking that movies that are less bloody are necessarily less violent, or that movies with less nudity are less sexual, or that movies that are more censored are necessarily safer to watch. Whether I watch the 1969 True Grit or the 2010 True Grit, I’m going to be getting my thrills from watching men shoot each other and chop off fingers. The main difference, it seems, is whether that violence will be quick and clean or bloody and painful. Maybe movies that provide the emotional thrill ride—the kind of rapid-fire thrill ride only possible in a movie theater—of watching bad guys get gunned down without acknowledging the brutality of what's happening are the real problem.

In either case, suddenly I have to take very seriously the question of whether the benefits of watching the film are worth the costs. After all, the lives of many men—or, in the case of both the 1969 and 2010 versions of True Grit, a guy’s fingers—are at stake.

I would love your thoughts here. What do you think about gritty films that approach issues like violence and sexuality with rawness? Are they more or less potentially dangerous than films that may contain the same content but handle it with less realism? If I'm going to watch a movie where fingers get chopped off, should I watch a glamorized version or a gritty version?


* http://www.pluggedin.com/movies/intheaters/truegrit.aspx

** I know that some would say here that a more gory film is necessarily more desensitizing than a gentler film, but I think it’s essential for us to determine which is more dangerous for us: that we watch so much gruesome violence that we become desensitized to blood and gore (a la the Saw films), or that we watch so much cartoonish violence (a la old westerns) that we become desensitized to the awful things that people are doing to each other. And when I say "dangerous," I don't mean that violent movies will necessarily move us to commit acts of violence; but when we should not pretend that watching a violent movie will not nudge us a tiny bit closer to darkness, and we ought to measure carefully whether it is worth it.