True Regret

2010 was a great year for Scott Rudin. He produced two films that are certain to get Oscar nominations:  The Social Network and True Grit.  He explains how the films got made in this interview, but here's what intrigued me most:

One of the big challenges in True Grit was getting the bookend idea to work. That wasn’t in the first movie. A lot of equity went into making sure we had done that right. That end narration got rewritten several times in post.

I liked the film a lot, but the framing device he's referring to almost scuttles the whole enterprise.  It may have been in the novel, but it added nothing to the movie--in fact, it took away quite a bit.  Maybe the reason it was so hard to make work was because it didn't.

(On the other hand, I like how the producer, writer and director of The Social Network all saw the film differently.  I think that gave the film its split personality.)