Description
Feature Film
Title:
The Assassination of Jesse James...Release Date:
2007Genre:
Drama
Writer:
Andrew Dominik and Ron HansenDirector:
Andrew Dominik
Andrew Dominik’s western takes place in the volatile days following the American Civil War. Adapted from Ron Hansen’s 1983 novel of the same name and starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, the film did not make much of a dent at the box office even though many critics included it in their top films of 2007.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a sweeping portrayal of the last days of the infamous James gang and the unraveling and eventual murder of one of America’s original anti-heroes, Jesse James.
This is a beautiful film. Roger Deakin’s cinematography is dreamlike, sometimes bordering on surreal. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have composed a haunting, mostly acoustical soundtrack. And the landscape of the Canadian prairie, standing in for the American Midwest and West, is a character in itself. It is in the midst of all this beauty that director Dominik chooses to tell his story of deception and murder. It is a story just as familiar to those of us living in the 21st century as it would have been to those who had weathered the Civil War.
At the center of the story is the relationship between the legendary Jesse James and the much younger Robert Ford. Ford grows up hearing and reading stories about the James gang. He idolizes Jesse as a modern day Robin Hood, stealing from the wealthy to provide for those on the losing side of the war. In reality, Pitt portrays a greedy and vindictive man who is prone to brutalize those closest to him. In an Academy-nominated role by Affleck, Ford slowly realizes his idol’s faults while being drawn even closer into James’s neurotic confidences.
It is this tortured bond between the notorious icon and the captivated everyman that speaks to our own celebrity culture. In Jesse James we glimpse the fragility and humanity of those we idolize. In Robert Ford we see ourselves, the cowardly way of living through others that keeps us from knowing real life. Not a western in the traditional sense, Dominik’s film is a slow burn that slowly reveals the result of Ford’s unholy worship. We would do well to learn this coward’s lesson without repeating his mistakes.
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