DESCRIPTION:
(No pauses between the pieces.) A fine artistic 1, 2, 3 from the Coen brothers

19 - "A quarter century later": - "what a friend we have in jesus" played slowly and with pathos. This segment in the movie is a meditation on time. Having a friend in Jesus, in God, is insinuating the eternal into our earthly years. In the movie we see the grown up Maddie - this change over time is itself a wonder.

20 - @1:14 "The Grave" - the piano then segues into an equally slow and meditative rendering of 'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" when the little girl, now grown, is visiting the grave of the one who saved her life. During the long reflective notes, it makes you wonder about the characters and how they related to each other. It also makes one wonder about one's own life and relations with others, too. This song, 'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms' is played throughout the movie with different instruments, cuts, and tempos as a motif. It is played here at the end as a summary statement of the happenings during the preceding movie. Yes, Blackie, Maddies loyal horse, running to exhaustion, and Rooster Cogburn then even carrying the poisoned Maddie across the cold darkling plain in his arms, illustrate those everlasting arms, the eternal in the temporal.

Those selfless acts make the eternal pour into the hours and days. In those acts, there is a blending of the boundaries between self, other, and setting, so that in a sense the pulse of Blackie running with Rooster carrying Maddie, is the pulse of the universe. Connecting this to the hymn in this movie, those selfless acts are grounded in the God of Love - Jesus, is what we call Him in these parts. Leaning on those everlasting arms is like, then, a sort of ... surfing ... on "God's will". The surfer is not doing it (all by himself), but is doing his part like a dancer, or perhaps like a branch on a tree.

21- @1:55 from the solo piano playing, comes the clear and heartfelt vocals of this same song from Iris Dement - sort of like in Beethoven 's 9th in which the human voices express the theme after the strings play it.. This is a denouement and recapitulation of this little fable , which mirrors our lives, too.

Incidentally, Iris is from Paragould, in the state of Arkansas where the author of True GRit is from and where he put the girl in his story. So her voice is authentic to the setting of the story. Paragould also is not far from Jonesboro, Ar, which is referred to in the scene right before this 1,2,3 musical ending in the voice over narration at the Wild West show. It was said that the show traveled to various places, and one was Jonesboro. The Wild West show itself reveals this theme of the passage of time: it allowed people who attended the show to 'go back in time' to a different period, when the frontier was wild. Portis' story is , therefore , set in this interesting intersection of different era's, a transition piece. See Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in the West', too.

As a kid, I visited these same places to visit my grandparents every summer. So when I saw this movie, and heard this music, I , too, was transported back in time. I was the young Maddie, who at once is/was the older Maddie, too. Also mixed into these slices of time and life is the stark image of Rooster's grave, which is the 'end' of life. As viewers of this art, we are connected to it and can therefore participate in the story, too. Rooster's grave, then, in a sense, was ours, too. When viewing this movie, we get to experience all these slices of time and life all at once. When my 14 yr old daughter, sitting next to me in the theater, asked me how I liked this movie, all I could do was feebly wave my thumb up. In the dark of the theater I was moved to tears.

Bravo, Charles Portis, Eathan, Joel, the music guy, and the cinematographer for putting this assemblage of storytelling, imagery, and music together for us.

http://www.irisdement.com/

Note that the publication date of this song was 1887, which puts this hymn smack dab in the timeframe of the movie. So this organic layer gives Coens' choice for this song even more resonance for this movie.

What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Refrain:
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

The following verse , which was found on the net, was not sung in the Iris Dement version.

What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.