Movie Review: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)–****
It’s not often I can say this about a movie, but when it comes to kiwi director Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, I’d be lying if I said I’d seen anything like it before. Jesse James is a folk ballad turned into an epic poem. It’s a film that could have twitched and nerved its way through the sprawling paranoia, but remains controlled amid the chaos. It’s a beautiful Greek tragedy in the Old West, and, more than that, it’s a masterpiece.
Jesse James (Brad Pitt) is only 34-years-old but has the weary eyes of a retirement age cop whose seen too many bad days. His own legend wears on him, which is why he seems simultaneously repulsed and intrigued by the 19-year-old wannabe outlaw Robert Ford (Casey Affleck). Ford has followed the James gang since he was a kid and his youthful enthusiasm, in spite of obvious ineptitudes, leads James to bring him into the fold.
Ford makes James nervous. But there is a growing call for James’s head by the state of Missouri and he needs reliable hands to help him evade the law. Others begin to plot against James, and he takes care of them in his own heavy-handed way. James makes the choice to keep Ford and Ford’s brother Charlie (Sam Rockwell) close, even inviting them into his home until James finally plans to rob something.
Ford, who is secretly working with Missouri’s Governor, doesn’t want to wait around for a career as a criminal to make him as famous as Jesse James, something he feels he’s entitled to. He decides the best, fastest way to become a legend is to be a legend killer.
The unnerving thing about Affleck’s Ford is that he’s so meek. He’s so unassuming. When he is quick to finish the Beatitudes by reminding the person praying that blessed are the meek, we realize it haunts him. Though he talks big, it’s hard to believe it when he finally does pull the trigger. Affleck creates a portrait of a man so imprisoned by his own failings that the only way to break out is to blow up the jail.
Pitt is great too, portraying an edgy, paranoid Jesse James that lacks the mythic grandeur of portrayals past. He has help though. Much of the credit for the film’s mood, its controlled nervousness, belongs not with the actors, but with cinematographer Roger Deakins’s isolating, fragmenting photography. Much of the lighting, too, appears to be at least partly natural, reminiscent of the candlelight scenes in Barry Lyndon. The scenes in Lyndon won Jon Alcott an Academy Award for cinematography, and Deakins turn at the podium should come in February.
Knowing the Academy, director Dominik won’t likely grace the red carpet. His poetic-style is reminiscent of the long-admired but perennially-snubbed Terrence Malick. Also like Malick, Dominik has taken the long road to completing is second feature, coming seven years after his first effort Chopper. One can only hope that in the wake of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford that we don’t have to wait too long for another Dominik effort. This master-in-waiting has created a film that will stand the test of time and one that in spite of its long runtime (160 minutes), I’ll be seeing again soon.
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