The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is almost as long as its title, but it may be the most valiant attempt at truly literary filmmaking in a while. It is a film that earns its elegantly archaic photography (shot by Roger Deakins, the Coen Brothers’ frequent cohort) and, perhaps, its slow deliberation over each and every frame. Although the setting is long past—in what remained of the Old West by the eighteen-eighties—the movie goes beyond the easy acceptance it could have had as simply another handsome period piece; the movie is surprisingly relevant today.

The film opens with the last train robbery perpetrated by the James gang. It is here that Deakins is at his most indulgent; the dreamlike, fuzzy-edged cinematography is at an apex here, pairing the sumptuousness of Terrence Malick films with the blurry decay of old photographs. Bob Ford (Casey Affleck), an awkward nineteen-year-old raised on Jesse James (Brad Pitt) dime-novels, insists that he take part in the venture. Jesse’s father—and later his wife—get the creeps from the naïve teenager, but the boy is admitted, nonetheless, and, on the train, he gets his first taste of Jesse’s violent temper: an engineer who refuses to kneel down before the bandit is bludgeoned mercilessly.

Bob never gains the respect of the rest of the gang, which is picked off one-by-one by Jesse for their acts of treason against him. By the end, only Bob and his dim-witted older brother, Charley (Sam Rockwell), remain. Bob idolizes Jesse, but he’s like a fanboy who meets William Shatner and then realizes that the starship Enterprise has never lifted off the ground. His first-hand experience is nothing like the cheap romances that he still keeps hidden in a shoe box under his bed. The true Jesse James is lunatically violent and paranoid; in one scene, he almost tears off a young boy’s ear when pumping him for information, but, by covering his mouth, never even gives the boy an opportunity to reply. The movie, however, has the decency to not peg the icon as simply a raging monster; at the end of the scene, the celebrated outlaw breaks down and cries.

The film is just as much Bob’s as Jesse’s, though. Charley forces an anecdote out of his brother about the long list of comparisons Bob has compiled between himself and Jesse; when his hero—who constantly tests his minions’ allegiance—mocks him for this, the railway bandit’s fate is sealed. The titular assassination makes the perpetrator as well-known as the victim—just as he always dreamed—but his celebrity is tinged with infamy and allegations of cowardice. Jesse James, the overly-romanticized brute, is immortalized as a folk hero; his slayer becomes a folk villain.

It is either remarkable fortune or the sign of pure genius that Brad Pitt, arguably today’s most established male star, performs the role of an over-hyped tabloid celebrity of yesteryear. He does not need to be Brando; as the mercurial, mysterious James, he needs his star’s presence—and, costumed in black and sporting the smile of a charming roué, he gives James the larger-than-life power that made him a myth. (In a nod to one of James’s successors, he slips into an impersonation of Warren Beatty’s Clyde Barrow from time to time.) But he culls the right degree of sensitivity, too, in a much practiced performance. Everything that James does is minutely tooled; he’s blasé about his celebrity, but thrives on living up to his reputation. His alpha-male instinct for self-protection eventually drives him mad and Pitt plays James as a troubled existentialist, whose unpredictable bursts of malice are intertwined with moody desperation. James’s fate has the weight a tragic hero’s; his own eccentricities lead to his downfall and the lives around him collapse like dominoes.

Though still a relative unknown—despite his big brother—Affleck will hopefully not be overshadowed. He mumbles through his role like the emo, misunderstood youngster that Bob essentially is, but his antisocial creepiness is made to be very sympathetic. He teeters on having a gay crush on James, which is an effective piece of playing because of Affleck’s internalization; his inability to conflate James the Legend, who he loves, with James the Man, who he fears, is what makes him so inarticulate. Although Bob learns his lesson to a degree, society never reconciles the murderer with their myth; this fatal flaw is Bob’s downfall. As his yokel brother, Rockwell shows the same ability to curry the audience’s good will, but uses a different technique. Rockwell’s sharp, nervous features make Charley seem consistently on the verge of breaking down. He’s someone who, unlike James, cannot mask the high volume of thoughts sputtering in his brain. His childlike inability to process information makes one fear for his safety throughout the picture; he seems like a defenseless sheep pitted against James’s wolf.

Perhaps because the director and screenwriter, Andrew Dominik, is a New Zealander—and not an American—he has a more objective understanding of a celebrity culture that is American in origin. An American may be more apt to turn this material into a garish satire, but Dominik is thoughtful enough to make his characters sufficiently imperfect and three-dimensional to inspire empathy and has enough restraint to let his commentary slip in as subtext. The movie’s main problems occur when it is too obvious and self-conscious; Dominik piles on too much redundant exposition in the voice-over and has a tendency to let shots linger for an added meaning that simply isn’t there. He does, however, let little things—like warped glass panes—bubble up with open metaphors and, for a sophomore director (his first film was an Australian movie that I’ve never heard of), that is a significant gesture of enlightened respect for the audience. He’s got a feel for dialogue, too. I’m not sure how much credit is due to Ron Hansen, who authored the novel, but the script captures the duplicitous dialect of Southern chivalry when not strewn with meaning-pounders. Dominik even slips in some subtle malapropisms, which are quite welcome in a movie that is largely devoid of humor.

“The Assassination of Jesse James” is not quite poetry; Dominik is far too controlling. Every emotion, every blink, is planned and I wouldn’t be surprised if the director required fifty takes for the simplest shots. Calculation can be stifling in movies—and yes, “The Assassination of Jesse James” is indeed calculated. But it’s set apart by an august sympathy behind the painstaking craftsmanship. The director may have O.C.D., but he imparts on his movie a warmth that keeps one from feeling cramped by the frostbitten setting. He makes a statement without implicating the audience or our society; Dominik allows us to know his characters intimately and his movie laments their plight. He shows that romanticization can be a façade, but romanticizes about the America of frontier times like a child enraptured by his history class. Dominik remains skeptical without insulting our intelligence or stepping on our dreams.

So, even though one may get weary at a lengthy epilogue that makes one feel the movie’s 160 minute runtime, “The Assassination of Jesse James” is a remarkably insightful, empathic and strikingly-beautiful film. If this isn’t nominated for Best Picture, we’re in for the best Christmas movie season in decades.