Yes, they're very different. Personally I enjoy Batman and Batman Returns as Tim Burton movies, not really as Batman movies. Nolan got the character and world much more correct as a representation of the best of the comics.

Edit: Used the wrong there and want to kill myself.

For me it wasn't just that Ledger kicked it old-school, but that he took it to a scary dark disturbing place that few actors have ever achieved in any film. I've wondered if that way he put himself into this role didn't help push him over the edge. I just watched it again, and he's not acting, he's "there".

Which is why I no longer act. I've still got pieces of the characters I used to play embedded in me for all eternity. A good actor doesn't so much act as become. For me, the problem was getting them out of me after I'd finished with a role.

I can only imagine what would've happened had I taken on a role like that.

Didn't realize it was that intense. I'm in awe.
And yes, it's one of my favourite roles. Incredible.

One of the reasons why you see so many actors flame out is that you have to be a bit tweaked in order to do it. It's not easy to dismiss your personality in order to become somebody else. There's unfortunately very little distance between being an actor and being a psychopath. And even more so that the industry tends to push people to get larger egos than they had originally and rewards bad behavior off set. As long as the public is OK with it.

That does seem to paint the picture behind his death..so sad.
I'm definitely a little tweaked. :) Very interested in acting but I am terrible at it. Maybe with some work but I dunno. I think I will stick with writing and enjoy film as an enthusiast.

Except, to be great, you must be part psychopath, part empath. The best can reach into themselves, and pull out something dark and ugly and fascinating, and convince us that we hold the same darkness. And they can't fake it.

That's probably a better way of putting it. I know personally, I could tell when I'd got the character when all of a sudden I wouldn't have to ask myself how to say a line, it would just come to me.

Personally, I've got a soft spot for August Wilson and John Steinbeck. There are other writers, but I've always found those two to be particularly compelling. You don't have to have lived through the 40s and 50s as a black person to connect with Wilson's plays. The characters could easily be of any color or class.

Very much enjoyed it.
The big change from the 1969 film is that the central charecter is Mattie Ross, not Rooster Cogburn,,which is the way it is in the novel. The reason the Coens made this film is they wanted a film that was closer in tone and character to the Charles Portis novel then the 1969 film is.
Bridges is good as Rooster, but Hallie Stenifield as Mattie walks away with the movie.