justice

True Grit

mandy — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:00:00 +0000

True Grit is set in a time when justice was a loose term and contractions have apparently not been introduced to the English language. After her father is murdered in cold-blood by an outlaw named Tom Chaney, the eloquent and calculating Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) travels to her father’s home with the goal of seeking justice against the attacker. She enlists the gruff and barely sober U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and the pair heads into Indian Territory to track down Chaney (Josh Brolin) along with Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) who has financial motivations for pursuing the outlaw. Throughout the journey the trio faces unexpected trials and conflicts with one another that challenge their will for justice and their ability to trust one another.

The Coens’ story-telling strength is their character driven narratives and True Grit highlights that strength brilliantly. Each character is not only well-developed with an identifiable arc, but they are also immensely fascinating with psychological conditions that go way below the surface. Rooster Cogburn appears to be a pessimistic and tight-lipped old fogey until he pours out his soul to Mattie during the beginning of their journey with never-ending anecdotes for a lengthy horseback ride. Tom Chaney exudes a powerful and threatening physical presence until he opens his mouth and reveals he is an unintelligent lackey in a group of slightly brighter criminals. Throughout the film the Coens subvert expectations with characters that don’t fit a particular archetype thus making the film an atypical adventure.

With the depth of characters naturally comes brilliant and moving performances from top to bottom, which is why numerous Coen actors have gone on to Oscar nominations and wins. The one absolute stand out in this film is Hailee Steinfeld as the indubitable Mattie Ross who is inexplicably being campaigned for awards as a supporting actress. The fourteen-year-old (thirteen during filming) Steinfeld carries the film with an uncharacteristic intelligence, remarkably diverse vocabulary, and ingrained sense of entitlement that makes it completely believable that she would be the leader of the trio. She is perfectly balanced with Jeff Bridges whose blank-faced stare makes for some hilarious comedic exchanges.

The Coen brothers have been fortunate to build a working relationship with one of the greatest cinematographers of all-time in Roger Deakins who returns for this film. Deakins’ camera pays homage to cinematic greats as it maintains the stillness of classic John Ford Westerns while framing just enough of each shot to give us more of the story. In one of the first shots we get a low-angle shot looking upward at three men being hanged on the gallows. Simultaneous with their necks snapping grotesquely, we see two men looking on apathetically from a building in the background, one of them mopping his brow. This glimpse immediately puts the audience in the state of mind that was prevalent in this place and time: death is part of any normal day.

The Coen brothers’ (under the alias Roderick Jaynes) editing also works perfectly with Deakins’ camera work to create suspense and comedy. The perfectly timed reaction shots to Cogburn’s deadpan stare make for some of the most hilarious and telling moments between the three members of the trio. The editing also brilliantly contrasts the comedy with the darkness as in some scenes each individual shot seems to create a different tone. These are skilled craftsmen at the top of their game and the result is a thing of beauty.

The full review can be read at Film Misery

Written by: Alex Carlson, January 10th 2011

Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality: A Call for a Compassionate Revolution

barbara — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Sylvia Clute

Hampton Roads Publishing

A former trial lawyer, Sylvia Clute became disheartened with the prevailing justice system and began her search for new approaches to justice. In her compelling book, Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality, she calls for a compassionate revolution that is based on the “Oneness” or unity of life. Clute offers a new vision of a legal system and its criminal and civil litigation gaps, and explains the failures of the justice system and other institutions that are based on a philosophy of dualism which pits “us” versus “them," “winners” versus “losers," and “insiders” versus “outsiders." She makes a strong point by underlying that we should not see ourselves as separate entities struggling for dominance over each other, but rather as a per of a larger, compassionate “oneness."

In Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality, Clute calls for a holistic approach to justice while exploring distinctions between oneness v. duality, power v. control, duality v. polarity. She explains oneness as the container which holds certain human experiences such as trust, transparency, generosity, reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, restoration, faith, hope, compassion, security, and peace. On the other hand, duality holds different experiences—suspicion, secrecy, divisiveness, judgment, attack, revenge, retribution, greed, jealousy, insecurity, and war. Any aspect of life can be constrained within the small container of duality, or it can be transformed to reflect the all-inclusive container of Oneness.

She offers rather new approach to the basic foundations of restorative justice, called “unitive justice,” which promotes inclusiveness, aims for healing and reconciliation, and desires relationships that are harmonious, equitable, and peaceful. It is the exact opposite of punitive justice which is grounded in fear and separation and based on the idea that punishment is a deterrent to crime. These new approaches to justice are not limited to the lawyers only, but to all people active in “addressing the unfairness of laws that sustain social ills-like poverty, homelessness, and discrimination." Clute sees positive signs of change in the Green Movement, conscious capitalism, peace building and conflict resolution, and restorative justice.

At the end of her book, Clute offers a number of thoughtful and provocative questions suitable for group discussions which are based on each chapter. Beyond Vengeance, Beyond Duality will be of interest to all people interested in social justice issues, in particular restorative justice.

Written by: Olivera Simic, October 30th 2010

The Mockingbirds

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Daisy Whitney

Little Brown Books for Young Readers

I don’t know how many times I can say a book is one of the best I’ve read this year and maintain any credibility; we’ve still got quite a few months left in 2010, so I guess we’ll find out. The thing is, I’m pretty convinced that this is a golden age for YA, and Daisy Whitney’s The Mockingbirds really is a phenomenal debut novel–one of the best I’ve read this year.

Last summer, I took a Children’s Lit class at Cal State University, Northridge. During the course of a discussion on censorship, which everyone was unanimously against initially, we began to question whether there were any topics that people would really consider off limits for YA or children’s lit. When students started to consider what they might not want their own children to read, people discovered that they all had boundaries, each person has some point at which they would be uncomfortable having a kid or teen read a book. For many people, that boundary was rape. Now, I acknowledge the right of any parent to determine what is acceptable for their own child to read, but of course that is extremely different from determining what other people’s children should be allowed to read. The fact is that, according to several studies I found, about forty percent of reported rape cases occurred to people under the age of eighteen. Rape happens to teens far too often, and they have a right to read about it.

In The Mockingbirds, Alex is raped after a drunken night out at a club. She wakes up the next morning in a boy’s room, naked, and discovers two condoms in the trashcan. The trouble is that Alex can barely remember anything that happened that night, but her friends know that she was in no condition to consent. Alex attends a progressive boarding school where punishment is rarely meted out because the school believes the students can do no wrong, but a group of students called the Mockingbirds serve as the school’s vigilante justice system, taking students’ punishments into their own hands. After Alex’s rape, the Mockingbirds become protectors, judges, and jurors. As the investigation and trial are underway, Alex begins to remember bits and pieces of what happened to her, and she knows that the sex was not consensual.

Whitney’s book, inspired by her own experience of being date raped in college, is vividly and powerfully written. I was on the verge of tears throughout most of it. This is not to say that the book didn’t have light moments, because there certainly are some, but the overall intensity and my amazement at what I was reading kept me pretty emotional. In addition to Whitney’s beautiful capturing of Alex’s feelings throughout the book, she also did an impressive job incorporating details from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, on which the school’s justice system is based. (However, those who haven’t read the classic will find that enough explanation is provided to understand everything in this book anyway. But they should still read Harper Lee’s book because it is truly one of the best of all time.) The book was clearly well researched all around, from the descriptions of the classical music Alex plays to Martin the science geek’s mini-lessons on bird intellect. Martin and the other supporting characters were also thoroughly fleshed out, each one with their own story that adds to the book’s strength.

The Mockingbirds shows readers that there can be consequences to stupid drunken behavior, but that if you are raped, you are still the victim and you still have options. It also portrays the importance of speaking out, because even if you will never be who you were before, you cannot let the rape eat away at you and define you forever. In Whitney’s book, Alex does not reach out to any authorities, but she still finds a support system within her school and makes it clear that you do not have to be alone. The novel is never preachy, nor does it stray into feminist manifesto, but it does lend a voice to those who often have difficulty finding their own. At the end of the book, Whitney shares some of her own story and provides resources for people who have experienced sexual assault.

Cross-posted at Reclusive Bibliophile

Written by: Melanie Goodman, June 30th 2010