Stagecoach and True Grit shared many traditional Western characteristics, however there were still many things that were drastically different about the two. Something similar between the two films was the overall setting of them. Both were set in a one-street town, and the look of the towns was very similar in the movies. Both of the towns also had very defined good and bad guys. Almost just by looking at someone you could tell whether they were good or bad. However, a huge difference between the two was the role of women. In True Grit, Mattie was without doubt the strongest character in the film. She knew how to pull her own weight, and get something down. In Stagecoach, Mrs. Mallory and Dallas are not necessarily weak, but they do not come off as strong as Mattie. Mrs. Mallory and Dallas let the other men do all of the work for them, while Mattie was more than eager to get in on everything and have a part in the action. I think that this definitely demonstrates what the time era was like when the films were being shot. True Grit was obviously shot very recently, and women today don't fade into the background like they used to. You can see this through Mattie's actions and how forceful she is when it comes to getting what she wants. In Stagecoach, the women are submissive and choose not to do anything because of the time period. Women in the 1930s were supposed to be seen and not heard, and you can definitely see the directors portraying that aspect of society throughout the film.
I thought that Unforgiven and True Grit were actually pretty similar. Both of them had shots of graphic violence (True Grit: the fingers being chopped off; Unforgiven: pick any one of the shooting scenes), and violence is definitely a revisionist element. In traditional westerns, people get shot and forgot very quickly. However, Unforgiven and True Grit chose to give more emphasis on what actually happens to people when they are injured, which is suffering. The scene in the desert in Unforgiven is particularly memorable because of the immense amount of pain from which the victim is suffering. One main difference between these two films as far as revisionist or traditional goes is in the character development. In True Grit, we know who is bad and we know who is good. Everyone wants Mattie to kill the man who killed her father, and everyone enjoys seeing Rooster slowly become outshone by this young girl. The characters who are good are clearly good, and the same with those who are evil. In Unforgiven, the heroes and the villains are not so easily assigned. Eastwood did something interesting in his direction of the film; he showed good and bad aspects to nearly every character of the film. First you see Will as a loving, caring father, but then you see him a someone who shoots unarmed men in cold blood. The same goes for the sheriff; we see him beat up English Bob who has come into the town for all the wrong reasons, but then he kills Ned for doing someone else's crime. The characters are not so clearly good or bad, which causes the viewer to think a lot more about the film and their perceptions of the overall message.
While True Grit obviously has many revisionist and traditional Western elements, I would have to decide that overall it is a revisionist. Many small details contributed to my choice, but I think that the most prominent one was because of Mattie's character. In traditional Westerns, women are NOT the heroes. They sit in the stagecoach and cover their heads while all of the fighting goes on around them. In True Grit, Mattie could not be any further from this stereotype. She doesn't just want to get in on everything: she actually does. Being aggressive and strong are the most prominent part of Mattie's character, and this shows how she definitely does not fit into the mold of a traditional Western. By doing this, I believe that the Coen brothers are trying to demonstrate something about the time that we live in. I think that they're trying to say that women can actually be strong, and that they're not just meant to sit around and do nothing. I also think that they get this message across perfectly, especially by having Mattie be the one to finally shoot her father's killer. If it had been Rooster or LaBeef, it would have made Mattie seem weaker, but the directors have her do it instead.
