Fri, 11 Feb 2011

One-Eyed Gods and One-Armed Gods

Archetypes, like gods, never really die... but which is which? And does it matter?

True Grit, the surprise hit from the Coen brothers, has captivated audiences and the Academy with its perfect balance of earnestness, humor, and Wild West derring-do. There is a dimension to the film that has not yet been pointed out, however. True Grit's main characters, Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) closely parallel two ancient Indo-European conceptions of justice represented by the one-eyed sovereign (wild, unreliable, ruling through bravado) and the one-handed sovereign (solemn, proper, ruling by the letter of the law).

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