Now I've Seen Everything Dept. (Updated)-The Coen Brothers Part 2

Part 2: The Cosmopolitan Years

It's always been "The Coen Brothers" as a writing-directing team, although Joel is more often the guy calling the camera shots and both Ethan and he write the screenplays, and Ethan produces. The sensibilities that intertwine the two make the creative decisions that make or break these movies, so it's a little hard to be able to discern exactly who does what. The fact of the matter is, they both do (and Roderick Jaymes, their regular editor is actually a psuedonym for the two).

The Coens have always had an eye to bringing out the best of their material, be it original work or adaptation, with edgy actors who can produce drama and comedy equally well. They successfully tread from the independent film circuit to mainstream cinema in a very short period of time, and their work is of such an obviously high caliber that audiences connected with them not long after critics did, and not even that blind industry ogre, Oscar, could delay giving them top honors. Their acting company contains A-listers and up-and-coming character actors on their way to the A-list. Their biggest-budgeted film was also their biggest failure. And they have such a peculiar sensibility that confounds and even tweaks expectations that their most devoted fans have Coen movies that they can't explain or fathom...and sometimes simply disregard.

But each film is a complicated moebius strip of cruel fate and clueless human failings, reflecting and refracting the rich vein of material from both the cinematic and literary past. It may start as inspiration, but it becomes increasingly Coen to the final frame.


The Big Lebowski (1998) It's a little inside: an L.A. mystery story that recalls the imagery and style of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, but in the guise of "The Dude."* Through no fault of his own, the perpetually half-mast Dude (Jeff Bridges) is assaulted in his home, and his favorite rug urinated on, which ignites a long-dormant desire for justice and payback. That he gets pulled into a kidnapping plot by another Lebowski, a well-heeled California family, with a crippled father-figure and a collection of entitlement-addled kids, is just gravy to getting a rug out of the deal. Narrated by a laconic Sam Elliott in the first-person, and with frequent drug-and-movie-influenced fantasy sequences when The Dude is knocked unconscious (a Marlowe specialty!), The Big Lebowski is a brilliant flash-forward to the seamy side of The City of Angels that Chandler documented during the '40's and '50's. Another stellar cast (great work by John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Julianne Moore, David Huddleston, and an early turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman) headed by Bridges tells a great detective story that doesn't feel like a detective story, but works more like an indictment of society, which is Chandler to a finely-crafted metaphor, proving that not only does the Dude abide, but Chandler's neon-flashed mean streets do, as well.

Of all the Coen's films, this one seems to have struck the cultural nerve with the deepest roots. If you're making plans, this year's LebowskiFest ("A Celebration of All Things Lebowski") is in Tampa January 31st and February 1st. Here's the poster:

O Brother, Where Art Thou?* (2000) "You shall see a cow on top of a cotton bale, and many other startlements," intones a blind prophet to the three escaped inmates (George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson). To say nothing of a blue-grass themed fantasia equal parts Homer, L. Frank Baum, and Depression-era musical. The startlements are a-plenty, including a Busby Berkley-inspired Ku Klux Klan rally, a phantasmagorical flash-flood on the prairie, as well as instant, anonymous fame. O Brother, Where Are Thou? is an odd, perfect blend of grit, dirt and fairy-dust, with a star-making turn that throws George Clooney directly into Clark Gable territory—although his fellow prison escapees Turturro and Nelson are just as good—along with great work by John Goodman (as a cyclopsian double-dealing travelling salesman), Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning. The soundtrack became a platinum seller producing a bluegrass mini-craze and the film, the Coen's most assured crowd-pleaser—although folks probably weren't exactly sure why.

The Man Who Wasn't There(2002) After their most successful film, the Coen's moved against type again with one almost no one saw. The Man Who Wasn't There is a luridly-titled, luridly plotted black and white contemplation on the type of pot-boiler James M. Cain would concoct but told absolutely straight. There are no hysterics in this movie (although hysterical things happen, including murders and suicides)—as a matter of fact, Billy Bob Thornton plays his barber Ed Crane without much emotion at all. Chain-smoking, narrating in a dull monotone, Ed decides he's going to invest in 1949's latest technological miracle—dry-cleaning. To get his investment stake, he surreptitiously blackmails the owner of Nerdlinger's department store (James Gandolfini), whom Ed knows is having an affair with his alcoholic wife (Frances McDormand). The ensuing "incredible mess" occurs, leading to complications that ensure both Ed and his wife being tried for murders neither one of them committed. The tone is different and the era is new, but one starts to feel the sameness of a Coen formula creeping in as far as plot while the stylistic window-dressing is changed. Still, Roger Deakins' cinematography (photographed in color, but printed in black and white) is luxurious to look at, and makes this entry stand out for that one element.

Intolerable Cruelty (2003) After the slight mustiness of The Man Who Wasn't There, this one is at least different. There are a lot of people who despise this movie enough to claim that the Coen's didn't really make it; they did, and it's one of their most conventional (and thereby unconventional) films. Crass, bawdy and cynical to the core, it still manages to be a love story set in the world of L.A. divorce lawyers. In this world of circling sharks, the Coens dare to bring up the word "trust."

Miles Massey (George Clooney, in an archly comic performance) is at the top of his game and beset by ennui. Legendary in his trade for the unbreakable, iron-clad "Massey Pre-nup," he has climbed the top of the pyramid only to find...nothing there. Dissatisfied with his mansion built on sand, he's looking for something to believe in—a challenge to his game, and he finds it in Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones, oozing danger), the soon-to-be-ex-wife of his current client. Opposing her in court, he becomes gob-smacked and follows her gold-digging career with a combination of fascination and hero-worship, only to watch her re-marry to Texas oilman Billy Bob Thornton, who, to display his unquestioning devotion eats his Pre-nup (with barbecue sauce) at the wedding reception. A lot of sharp dialogue delivered at a fast pace; imagine a Tracy-Hepburn movie with a really rancid sense of humor and you've got this movie. Excellent supporting work by Paul Adelstein, Richard Jenkins, and Julia Duffy. Favorite joke: the matrimonial attorney organization that holds its convention in Las Vegas is called N.O.M.A.N. and their slogan is "Let N.O.M.A.N. put asunder."

The Ladykillers (2004) Something of a misfire, this Americanized remake of a beloved 1955 Ealing Brothers comedy (starring Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, and Herbert Lom) was intended to be directed by the Coens' old cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who pulled out of the job. So, the Coens directed instead. The plot is basically the same: a gang of miscreants led by a dark Professor (Tom Hanks) rents a room from a clueless old woman (Irma P. Hall), as it is the perfect location to dig a tunnel to a vault where they can steal a fortune. In this case, it's a riverboat casino. Things go Incredibly Wrong (mostly due to the incompetence and internal bickering of the gang-members) and they soon wind up (each of them in turn) on a garbage scow heading down the river to be dumped. How the Coens arrange for everybody (and everything) to be deposited on that barge stretches credulity a bit, and as a final ironic knife twist, the woman, left with the money and no criminals to spend it, contributes the entire fortune to Bob Jones University

When things go wrong... Unfortunately, the same can be said of the film as well.

The Coens would rebound and spectacularly.

No Country for Old Men (2007) The one that won all the marbles: Oscars for Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem), Best Directors, and Best Picture. And yet No Country for Old Men was never a sure thing. Based, or should I say (as it's the fashion now), "slavishly adapted" from Cormac McCarthy's book, it seems like a perfect fit for the Coen's, who changed little, but meticulously cast it.

And, one should add, brought it to life—no small accomplishment.

One would think, looking back over their history, that No Country for Old Men could have been written just for them, as so many elements of their past films and the structure of it (not to mention the outlandishness of the deeds and the obliqueness of the dialog) are contained in it. However it happened—by devious planning or the serendipity of coincidence—story and directors appear to be made for each other.

Full review here: No Country for Old Men

Burn After Reading (2008) Another change-up pitch coming after their Oscar success, "Burn After Reading" is a satirical romp, mixing two groups of the hopelessly narcissistic: the self-improvement gym crowd, and "K" street intelligence workers. A mix of Coen regulars (Clooney, McDormand, J.K. Simmons and the nearly invisible Richard Jenkins given a prominent, heart-breaking role) with new blood (Brad Pitt—who's hilariously dumb,*** John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and David Rasche), it's a "get-rich-quick-scheme" turned deadly when a bunch of rank amateurs think they can play the same game as the pro's. Meanwhile, the CIA monitors the situation, refusing to act until things get particularly ugly (wow, just like real life). It's the Coen's doing the spy genre, the way they do everything else, with a cheery dark humor and following the letter of Murphy's Law. 

Full review here: Burn After Reading

A Serious Man (2009)  Myth and reality mix it up in modern times, but which is it? Oh, don't ask why? Don't make it complicated. "Embrace the mystery."

But, do so at your own risk.

I thought this was the best movie of 2009 for what it said about life and the observation of it (who said "an unexamined life is not worth living?"), but also how it mixed myth, reality and perception (even as we watch the movie unfold in a theater) in a literate, apt way.  Some critics just looked at the Coen's faith (or lack of it in practical terms) and judged it "anti-semitic."  Schmucks.  Here are better observations from some wildly disparate view-points:

http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/287862.html
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/03/magical_thinking.php
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2010/03/01/a_serious_man_26_righteous_men_theory/

Full review here: A Serious Man

True Grit (2010) Those familiar with the 1969 version starring John Wayne probably thought "why bother?"  The answer to that is—to make it less a "John Wayne" movie, and more in keeping with Charles Portis' original novel.  At the time the first was made, there was a "youth movement" going on and the movie very slightly pandered to that audience.  The other is that Wayne is such a powerful screen presence, he blows everybody else right off the screen, good (Kim Darby) and bad (Glen Campbell, who still seemed to hold his own).  The Coens went back to the original, cast someone (Hailee Stansfield) more the age of the novel's Mattie Ross, emphasized her spiritual spine, more than pluck, and included Portis' coda to show that the faith that sustained her through the struggle, also marked her for life to remain that stubborn fourteen year old, always.

Jeff Bridges made a fine irascible "Rooster" Cogburn, Matt Damon a nicely vain LaBoeuf, Josh Brolin a good, pathetic Tom Chaney, but Barry Pepper steps in late in the game to play a superb "Lucky" Ned Pepper.  The Coens remain true to the book, making it less picturesque and more wintry and uncomfortable (and adding in a customary eccentric in a bear suit).  

Full review here: True Grit (2010)

* "The Dude" is based on one of the publicists the Coens met when they were shopping "Blood Simple" around the film-festival circuit," Jeff Dowd. Dowd is one of those fixtures in the L.A. film community that you wonder how they make a living, and as such he's a modern counter-point to Chandler's Philip Marlowe who always seemed to be out of work, without portfolio, schedule or prospects.

** "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" is the title of the film director John Sullivan wants to make in "Sullivan's Travels."

*** This was particularly on their minds during its construction, referring to the story as a "duelling idiots" movie. Reportedly, after shooting his last scene, Clooney remarked: "OK, I've played my last idiot!" ("I guess that's the last time he works for us," says Joel) When told they'd written his part specifically for him, Pitt mentioned he didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted, and added he wasn't sure how to play the part—"There was a pause and Joel said 'You'll be fine.'"

Now I've Seen Everything Dept:-(Updated) The Coen Brothers (The Prairie Years)

Part 1: The Prairie Years

It's always been "The Coen Brothers" as a writing-directing team, although Joel is more often the guy calling the camera shots and both Ethan and he write the screenplays, and Ethan produces. The sensibilities that intertwine the two make the creative decisions that make or break these movies, so it's a little hard to be able to discern exactly who does what. The Fact of the matter is, they both do (and Roderick Jaymes, their regular editor is actually a pseudonym for the two).

The Coens have always had an eye to bringing out the best of their material, be it original work or adaptation, with edgy actors who can produce drama and comedy equally well. They successfully tread from the independent film circuit to mainstream cinema in a very short period of time, and their work is of such an obviously high caliber that audiences connected with them not long after critics did, and not even that blind industry ogre, Oscar, could delay giving them top honors. Their acting company contains A-listers and up-and-coming character actors on their way to the A-list. Their biggest-budgeted film was also their biggest failure. And they have such a peculiar sensibility that confounds and even tweaks expectations that their most devoted fans have Coen movies that they can't explain or fathom...and sometimes simply disregard.

But each film is a complicated moebius strip of cruel fate and clueless human failings, reflecting and refracting the rich vein of material from both the cinematic and literary past. It may start as inspiration, but it becomes increasingly Coen to the final frame.



Blood Simple (1984) I read about "the buzz" surrounding this film in Time Magazine, and decided to attend the premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival (complete with Coen Bros. Q & A afterwards). A more violent, solitary and sinister take on James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Double Indemnity, what stuck were the sick sense of humor, the brazen camera moves by DP Barry Sonnenfeld (I always remember that one sliding the bar that vaults the drunk lying across it--they probably wouldn't pull that one today) and the set-piece structure. what was also clear was that the Coens were studious, not content to show the highlights, but to delve into the psychology of the situation. Case in point: the sequence when stud Ray (John Getz) is getting rid of the body of his lover Abby's husband (Dan Hedaya) — he thinks she killed him and is trying to protect her—by driving it in the middle-of-the-night down a two-lane highway surrounded seemingly infinitely by farm-land. He hears the husband begin to wake up, and in a moment of panic pulls over and flees the car, running into the field.

And stops. And stands there, looking at his car with the lights on, sitting on the freeway with a not-quite-dead body in it. And there's a perfect Coen situation: what do you do? What can you do? You have to go back, or else someone's going to find the car--your car, with the body inside--eventually, but you're scared to death to go back. You have to go back. There's no choice. He has top go back. And the Coen's don't cut a frame of the entire terrifying walk back. Hitchcock meets Truffaut...again. Only Hitchcock would never be so rural.

At the Q&A, the low-key Coen's took the amused audience's questions with matter-of-fact answers, until one blow-hard schlumpfed to his feet. "Why so much blood?" he yelled at the stage. The Coen's blinked, looked at each other. Joel said, "It was dramatically necessary." Ethan, said "People bleed, man." "Bullshit!!" said the questioner. It was a portent to the violent reactions that the Coens would generate no matter what movie they made, what genre they explored. You can't please everybody.

Raising Arizona (1987) Picketed at the time of its release (because a baby was used in the stunt sequences--one wasn't, of course--but you can't tell that to biddies with signs!!), The Coen's mordant sense humor is on fine display in their first out-and-out comedy.

The comic sense of Raising Arizona is as dry and dead-pan as its desert locations, and its peripatetic zinging around the flat-lands (both in terms of the protagonists and the camera work) has the speed and geometry of Chuck Jones's "Road-Runner" cartoons. Nicolas Cage is H.I. McDunnough, Picasso-asymmetrical in his look, he even has the hang-dog look of Wile E. Coyote. As his better quarter in "The Family Unit," Edwina (Holly Hunter) is all bantam chicken-hawk, chest out and lines belted to the loges...in the theater across town. The ying/yang-zing-zing of the McDunnoughs would be enough for most films, but "Raising Arizona" has peripheral characters of mythical proportions threatening their double-wide existence, including John Goodman and William Forsythe as former prison acquaintances who literally rise up from the Earth, and Randall 'Tex' Cobb as a smouldering biker-"warthog from Hell." Invaluable in the mix is Trey Wilson as Nathan Arizona, the unfinished furniture King whose family's sudden density inspires the childless McDunnoughs to baby-napping. The energy the Coen's instilled in Raising Arizona was probably siphoned some of the nitrous oxide of their crony, Sam Raimi, whose "Evil Dead" movies have the same sort of manic intensity. The intensity would remain. The mania would occasionally re-surface.

Miller's Crossing (1990) Coen Brothers, formalized. When they turn serious, the Coens turn very serious, and their first study without a hint of their sly, off-putting humor is this small scale mob movie with big themes in the style of Dashiell Hammett. Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) is a foot-soldier in Big Leo's (Albert Finney) bootleg whiskey business during Prohibition, in a small industrialized eastern town. Despite their differences, rival hood Johnny Caspar (the wonderful Jon Polito), is polite enough to request that his gang be allowed to "whack" loose cannon Bernie Bermbaum (John Turturro). Bernie is brother to Big Leo's moll Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), and so the mob boss refuses, despite the complications the duplicitous Bernie causes to both sides. Tom would like to see Bernie gone, because he's also seeing Verna on the side, and the complicated loyalties/disloyalties he engenders will turn to blood-shed on both personal and business levels. A great cast telling a subtle story, with just a tinge of Bertolucci atmospherics, Miller's Crossing is a full-blooded masterwork.

Barton Fink (1991) The Coens experimented with surrealism in Raising Arizona, but they turn the stage completely over to that realm with this satire of hypocritical "kitchen-sink" theater writers "slumming" on Hollywood screenplays. Barton Fink (John Turturro) is clearly based on Clifford Odets, the leftist-playwright who named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee ("I'll show them the face of a true radical" Odets crowed, only to cave when he appeared). Fink, fresh off another theater triumph, signs on with Capital Pictures to write a Wallace Beery wrestling movie and retreats to the Hotel Earle, whose eerie deformities and distractions only enforce his writer's block on the subject. Part of it is lack of inspiration. Part of it is that East Coast intellectual Fink knows little of hard-knock reality, except what he can romantically invent. Visits by working stiff travelling salesman Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) (whom Fink dismisses to his detriment) and alcoholic writer W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) only complicates matters. Barton Fink is such an angry, vindictive film that it's more off-putting than entertaining, but the visual and sonic inventiveness of the Coens is on full display to make the audience...and Fink squirm in their chairs (This is the first Coen film photographed by their essential collaborator Roger Deakins). But despite their obvious animosity towards Fink, they allow him to emerge from their creative Hell, more or less unscathed...but still a bit myopic.

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)The first genuine bomb created by the Coens, this big-budget collaboration between the brothers, producer Joel Silver and Sam Raimi told a Capra-esque pastiche by way of Preston Sturges and Ayn Rand about an up-and-coming business student (Tim Robbins) assuming a corporate position under false pretenses, who manages to save the failing Hudsucker Company with the most worthless of inventions—the hula-hoop. If it weren't the story of "Wham-O" it might be bizarre enough a story to tell. As it is, the film strains any good feelings it has by stilted performances from Paul Newman and Jennifer Jason Leigh and a production that seems to care more about the architecture and the whizzing camera-work than anything resembling character. Silver, who was a mega-producer at this point, producing many of the Schwarzenegger action movies and the "Die Hard" series and seemed to have the magic touch at this stage of his career, and threw all sorts of money into this project only to see the film rejected by audiences even as a cult hit.

The Coens were angling for respectability with The Hudsucker Proxy. But returning to their roots with their next film garnered the attention they were seeking.

Fargo (1996) "THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred."

Yeah, not so much, I think. Despite an opening crawl that says the story is based on true incidents, the crimes in Fargo never happened, but might have been pieced together from several incidents. Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), frustrated trying to secure income from his father-in-law (Harve Presnell) conspires with a couple of roughnecks (Peter Stormare, Steve Buscemi) to kidnap his wife and hold her for ransom.

Then, what the heck, things go terribly, terribly wrong.

Fitting nicely in the "terrible mess" school of comedy (where well-organized plots go hilariously awry), the kidnapping-gone-wrong is soon being investigated by the highlight of the movie (among many) in the character of very pregnant Police Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), who sweetly waddles through the horrific story looking at clues with a clear eye and common sense. Audiences loved Marge ("You betcha!") and feared for her, travelling as she did, as the first true moral compass to appear in the amoral Universe of a Coen Brothers movie.

Next: The Coen Brothers (The Cosmopolitan Years)

True Grit (2010)

"Revenge in a Minor Key"

or

"Hoo-raw'd by a Little Girl"

Someone had to save "True Grit" and that the Coen Brothers are in charge of posse is reason to be appreciative.  After their rather opaque film A Serious Man tanked seriously at the box-office (I thought it was last year's best movie), they needed a more accessible property to bring in audiences, and the well-known property (whether by book or previous film) is a good match.

Sure, I love the original 1969 version.  But, over time legend has overcome its considerable gifts, overshadowing the story, as John Wayne's performance overshadowed the movie.  True Grit (1969) is an adventure story, where the book is a post-modern comic drubbing of Old West myths.  The first film has a lot of those myths intact, those being the myths from Hollywood's westerns, including such at-the-end-of-an-era things as Strother Martin, Jeff Corey, Hank Worden, the opening song, Elmer Bernstein's  Copland-with-brass score, clean streets and available light.  The first True Grit is a sun-dappled western romp more pretty than gritty, with Kim Darby (good as she is) having to play young rather than the character, and Glen Campbell (out of his depth) as the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf.  It's just so clean, and the enterprise at its core so self-congratulatory that the point of the book gets a bit swamped in the process. 

The Coens take True Grit back to its roots.  Keeping in Mattie Ross' arch narration, and casting 14 year old Hailee Steinfeld as the young protagonist is a shift that greatly improves this adaptation.  Steinfeld is just severe enough, and, as opposed to the earlier film's Darby, spends her time acting more adult, as opposed to being an older actress acting young.  She's a bit arresting, bossing around Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and horse-trader Hollister (Dakin Matthews), not having to sell the "young" aspect, but merely rise above it.

Like Steinfeld, the rest of the casting is superb.  Matt Damon's LaBoeuf is still a glory-hound, but of such fool-hardy self-assurance and puffery that you actually feel a bit sorry when it doesn't pan out to his vision.  Josh Brolin does a fine job as Tom Chaney, the initial object of the man-hunt, bigger in myth than he is in real life, and something of a whiner.  And Barry Pepper is nearly unrecognizable as Lucky Ned Pepper (I'm sure, no relation), who reveals a gift for rolling around the stilted dialogue he's been saddled with, and who (bless him) acknowledges in his performance the work of the fine actor who preceded him in the role.*

And everyone will be watching Jeff Bridges, because he has small boots to fill—Wayne had little feet—His "Rooster" Cogburn has his eye-patch on the other side (Wayne kept his left eye covered, Bridges his right—that a political statement?), and his deputy Marshall is more dissolute, less jolly, growlier and more willing to admit his infirmities.  His drunk is a bit more dangerous and cantankerous (the Coens keep the corn-dodger shooting match between Cogburn and LaBoeuf), although Bridges always tries to invest some dignity in the stumbling, playing it less for laughs than for character.  The role has little of Wayne's "star" presence, but a nice sunken lived-in quality.  His "Fill your hands, you son-of-a-bitch" is not said as a challenge, but in genuine anger, without Hollywood quotation marks.  He's superb, and by the time he confronts a Choctaw body-snatcher on the hunt, Wayne's version is cheerfully merely remembered.

But, it goes beyond that for the Coens' version.  Their True Grit is steeped in atmosphere, acknowledging racial differences and feeling less like a scout outing on a beautiful spring day.  Confrontations are held in pitch-black night, during snow-flurries, and inclement weather.  Nature in its beauty played a big part in the appeal of the 60's Grit, here it is nature in its ambivalence—one gut-wrenching scene taking place in the pitch of night under a dwarfing sky of shining stars.  The struggles of the individuals, man and beast, under that canopy are thrown into stark relief with those indifferent points of light.  It haunts, and throw one more sharpening aspect of this version that the previous lacked.

For, after the deeds have been done, this Mattie Ross, confidently bossy 14 year old, is given a sight of the carnage her single-minded quest has left in its wake.  There are moments, under that clear sky, of regret that the first film didn't dare preach, and of the destruction such obstinance can wreak.  A further coda follows the book's conclusion, that such lessons may not keep, under so strict a host.

It's lovely.  It's the book, done in a minor key in an overcast light, not dressed-up and gussied-up, but bittersweet, full of sand, and a lot of grit.

True Grit (2010) is a Full-Price Ticket

* Okay, I can't keep it a secret, it is so delicious: Robert Duvall played Pepper in the first film, and in a key-scene (with Pepper in close-up) giving instructions to stay with Mattie Ross, Pepper gives a two-fingered hand-signal that was a running gesture of Duvall's iconic (and beloved) Augustus McRae in the "Lonesome Dove" mini-series.  That move calls to mind another gesture echo in classic westerns: John Wayne's grabbing his arm in the last shot of The Searchers in a quiet tribute to the habit of another star of John Ford westerns, Harry Carey.  Lovely, and nearly invisible.