...the film moves slowly, deliberately, albeit sometimes too leisurely along.
Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »
"Well, Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life,
Three children they were brave,
But that dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard
Has laid poor Jesse in his grave."
Isn't there a law in Hollywood forbidding movie titles that are too long to fit on a marquee? Maybe not. But there ought to be. Still, this 2007 release has a title that perfectly matches its subject matter: They're both too long by half.
Although "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" is a big-budget affair with a notable cast that includes Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Mary-Louise Parker, Sam Shepard, Michael Parks, even James Carville, Warner Bros. chose to release it in a limited run and then pulled it rather quickly. As a result, it didn't come near any motion-picture theaters in my area, so I watched it for the first time on DVD and a second time on an HD DVD and DVD Combo. This may have been a disserve to the movie because it looks as though a person should really have seen it on a big screen; its visual splendor is the best part of the show.
In "The Assassination of Jesse James" writer-director Andrew Dominik ("Chopper"), who adapted the screenplay from a book by Ron Hansen, and his director of photography Roger Deakins have striven consciously to emphasize aesthetics, character relationships, atmosphere, and tone over pure action. If it's action you want in your Jesse James saga, try "The Long Riders." Dominik's version wants you to look at and admire the mood and the scenery, all whilst you ruminate on the vagaries of the dialogue. Be that as it may, it seems to me that Robert Altman and Sam Peckinpah already did this kind of thing better in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" and "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid."
Regardless, the filmmakers mean for "The Assassination of Jesse James" to be a poetic eulogy for the legendary outlaw--an elegy, if you will--and even the characters in the movie speak in a somewhat exalted, idealized manner. Deakins's photography is wide, grand, and imposing, sensitively composed, with hints of blur and mist and soft, pastel shadings. The train robbery at the beginning of the movie, for instance, is a work of art in itself. You'll also find a multitude of wide open spaces and handsome landscapes, plus any number of seeming digressions amidst an abundance of quiet moments. The soundtrack music is lyrical as well, soft and slow, mostly solo piano. And like a lot of poetry, the film moves slowly, deliberately, albeit sometimes too leisurely along.
Adding to the mournfully expressive air, we get a solemn voice-over narration. Oddly, the film does not show us as much of the plot line as it could, choosing instead to tell us much of it, with a narrator speaking over the visuals. In a way, then, the movie comes off like an artistic documentary; yet with its abundance of fine actors, it seems something of a puzzle why the filmmakers didn't let the characters reveal to us more of their own story. Anyway, the narrator starts by telling us about Jesse: "He considered himself a Southern loyalist and guerilla in a Civil War that never ended. He regretted neither his robberies nor the seventeen murders that he laid claim to."
The tale begins on Sept. 7, 1881, near Blue Cut, Missouri, just before the James boys staged their final railroad holdup. Jesse was thirty-four years old, and it would be one more year before Bob Ford gunned him down. The movie covers that final year.
By this time all the original members of the James gang but Jesse and his brother Frank were dead or in prison, and it's now that Bob Ford tries to join up. Bob's brother Charley was already a member of the gang, and young Bob, nineteen, wanted more than anything to ride with them. Why? As Bob explains it, he's been a nobody all his life and wants to be a somebody. But more particularly, it's because he has a case of hero worship going. Ever since Bob was a kid he was obsessed with Jesse, having collected every dime novel and every newspaper and magazine clipping about him. He wants to be just like Jesse. He wants to be Jesse.
Brad Pitt plays Jesse in a half-smoldering, half-scowling manner that shows the actor is trying his best to make people take him seriously, if only the script had given him something more to say. As it is, this Jesse is a warmhearted family man on the one hand and a cold-blooded killer on the other. But the screenplay never provides any reasons for the dichotomy. Pitt's Jesse is an eternal enigma, a man in middle age who regrets the life he's led, changing his name to Thomas Howard, moving from place to place in his final years, and becoming ever more paranoid by the day. With a price on his head, he trusts no one, especially not his old partners. Jesse is continually suspicious, ambiguous, and melancholy, a man contemplating the meaninglessness of his life, a man often on the verge of suicide. Indeed, the movie suggests that Jesse may have even prompted his own death by providing Bob Ford the gun and the opportunity to kill him.
Average user rating (1-5):
Not yet rated.
Not yet rated.
[release]22867[/release]