There was no such thing as mass-communication, a good percentage of the population didn't read, and newspapers, the only 'organized' form of news at the time, were hard pressed to report on anything more than a day's ride from town.

But one thing's sure, people were much more naive. It is probably almost impossible for any of us now, in this day and age, to truly imagine what it must have been like to live back when. Not that of any one character however, but the innocence of the human race as a whole. That the dialogue in 99% of westerns is straight from the time of their filming is a travesty, at best. Crack open anything by Mark Twain, Henry James or any other late 19th century author, and you will see that people really did speak differently 150 years ago. This movie is anchored by two very strong themes, shared by all the actors, across most of the scenes. In True Grit, very little of 1969 is allowed to intrude on this rather simple tale of justice and revenge. It's very hard to lose oneself in a tale of the late 1800's when the female lead's eye-liner and coiff are pure 1950. In movies, the desire to please as wide an audience as possible seems always to win out, effectively robbing most westerns of the motion picture's essential gambit the suspension of disbelief.

I don't care for them much, primarily because I usually can't fall for them. Like most Americans, I have seen hundreds, maybe thousands of westerns in my life.

True grit book