Summa This, Summa That
It's the original True Grit, starring the unchallenged King of the Western in the lone Oscar-winning performance of his career. I don't think I like it quite as much as the Coens' more recent effort (either as an adaptation or as a film), and I'm not sold on the idea that Wayne won his statue based on the strength of this particular performance (rather than for his overall body-of-work). But it and he are still highly enjoyable, and it's streaming on Netflix.
I think the strengths and weaknesses of the "traditionally orchestrated" versions really underscore the fact that great artists often work as well (or better) with limitations as they do if they are unimpeded. (The Czech National Symphony Orchestra's version of "On Earth As It Is In Heaven," for example, lacks the vibrancy of The Mission's original. Somehow, the added layer of polish obscures the wonderful roughness and ethnicity of the film's soundtrack.)
Lastly, grasping at straws, I tried whistling the melodic shard over and over again, hoping to coax the faintest of memories from the back of my head, somewhere. Eventually, the word "Haugen" came to mind (which was weird), and then, the word "wedding." And that (and Google) took me the rest of the way home.
It's worth watching even if for no other reason than to remind yourself that Peter Jackson is -- and has always been -- an unapologetic, wide-eyed movie lover; a fact that has always made him more likeable in my eyes, and one that I really needed to revisit after his "efforts" on the three Hobbit "films."
Actually, it makes more sense than you might think at first. Because it's the legendary Max Fleischer's legendary "The Mechanical Monsters," and if it didn't influence Miyazaki's robots in Castle in the Sky (and relatedly, probably, Brad Bird's The Iron GIant), than I am very much mistaken. And you know I hate being very much mistaken.
While hardly the biggest fan of the Michael Bond tales upon which the film was based, they'd always seemed charming, child-like, and fundamentally uncinematic in their simplicity (and in the fact that their main character was a talking bear). It was hard for me to imagine a successful cinematic interpretation of Bond's light-but-enjoyable efforts. But I was wrong.
