...By the Coward Robert Ford. Based on Ron Hansen's novel of the same name, Andrew Dominik's film is a beautiful, moody rumination on obsession, paranoia, and legend, with subtle yet powerful performances from Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt.
Read Jerry P's full review (including spoilers) in the Bookmans forum.
Variety's Thad McCarthy called director Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford “one of the best westerns of the 1970s.” He then listed about ten movies from that era, most of which could be guessed by anybody who knows westerns at all. I understood what he was driving at: its tone and style evoke that earlier era of noteworthy westerns.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is certainly quite different than, say, 3:10 to Yuma, which has a more rapid pace, more action for its own sake, and has a good guy and a bad guy in the primary relationship; it lacks the brooding meditative qualities, mood music, and lush, wonderful cinematography - especially the vast and grand shots of Western landscape - that Dominik’s film has. These are characteristics that indicate his chief model was Terrence Malik, especially the Malik who made Days in Heaven. 3:10 to Yuma was a fictional yarn designed to entertain, while Dominik’s interpretation of Jesse James is more a poetic recollection of the life and death of a real killer turned American legend.
Robert Ford was first in a line of a string of young wimpy assassins who kill outsized individuals, as if to enlarge their own egos, to suck the fame out of their victims, and to eliminate their own smallness and insignificance. I think of Mark Chapman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Arthur Bremer, the twerp that shot and maimed Governor George Wallace. The subtext of The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford is how mythic figures like Jesse James are created out of public sentiment, current events, and wishful thinking. Rationality has nothing to do with it. The man killed 17 men single-handedly and was involved with 26 robberies over a 14-year career, but the image that persists is that of a Robin Hood figure, when there is no real evidence to support that. Apparently the myth has roots in the fact he robbed banks and railroads, businesses that were owned and run by the Robber Barons, who must have been perceived as more robber than Baron. Jesse was scoring points for the common man, just as folks during the Great Depression cheered on Bonnie and Clyde for robbing banks and thus getting back at the ruling class for all the foreclosures and job losses.
Jesse James (Brad Pitt) is a product of Missouri, a border state that in the 19th century had partisans on both sides of the slavery issue; he grew up in a farm family that had slaves, so his sympathies are with the Confederacy. He never fought in the Civil War but he did ride with William Quantrill and his renegade militia, which was good basic training for a young outlaw. The movie opens with Jesse’s last robbery, the Blue Cut train robbery. Afterwards Jesse's older brother Frank (Sam Shepherd) decides to leave the outlaw life behind and quit the gang, moving to the state of Virginia. Most of the gang is now composed of rural lowlifes, as most of the older members are dead or in prison. The Ford brothers are new to the gang - Charlie Ford (Sam Rockwell) joins first, and his younger brother Robert (Casey Affleck) is 19, playing the minor role of horse caretaker. Robert tries to suck up to Frank James about being a full-fledged member of the gang. Frank listens to his plea, and then turns on him: "You haven’t got the ingredients, son.” Robert, of course, says he’ll show him some day that he does have the right stuff to be an outlaw.
The middle section of the film deals mostly with the secondary characters who start arguing and killing each other off, for one reason or another. Jesse ends up trusting the Ford brothers more than anybody else, which seems odd given his intuition is usually very keen. He always seems to know when the law is close or who is thinking about betraying him. The assassination is ambiguous, not a cut-and-dry event. It is psychologically complex with perhaps dark, unrecognized motives involved. This is especially true for Jesse. Because of the way the director lays out the scene, I tend to see it as Jesse arranging his own death, as if desiring to put the proper conclusion to his legend.
What happened to the Fords after that was a kind of half-life that didn’t last too long. Dominik takes some liberties with the historical facts, but we’ll forgive him some poetic license. The epilogue of the film deals with the construction and spread of the James legend; the mythic outlaw stepped into history. Brad Pitt gives a strong performance as Jesse, terrifying at moments and playful at other times, as well as a solid family man. Casey Affleck has been nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Robert Ford, the thin-voiced mousy assassin. He puts himself on the map with the job he does here.
The film is now available on DVD.
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