Review – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
- Ethan Cole

Highlights: Detractors:
  • Train Robbery
  • Narrative style
  • Cinematography
  • Sound Design
  • Pacing
  • Fucking long
  • No Oscar winning upskirt

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – the build up, the man, the legend – the meek betrayer, it’s a long ride, longer than the title itself but nonetheless; it is a unique ride.

This film is essentially like riding shotgun on a psychic-trip; the biopic procedural which entails of following the various characters intertwined with Jesse James.  This vicarious vision into the past is furthered by the sound design; a naturalistic style observed in which sounds aren’t overblown and larger than life.  The oddest part about this: is that it isn’t jarring; fitting well into the film’s presentation.  The sound compliments the powerful visual style with use of a selected and limited score; the music being appropriately somber and drifting.

The production generates a unique atmosphere; an almost naturalistic historical presentation as opposed to a period drama: the world is alive; effectively like gazing into the past through some scrying glass.  The latter is furthered by vignettes featuring a concave fish-eye lens; the outer-rims distorted with an out of focus color bleed.

There is a poetry to this film; the train robbery scene in particular; realized is a pure evocation of legend, the mystique and aura of a man and a heist presented in such an ethereal manner – yet all grounded in an uncanny realism.  The sound and visual craft at work yields an awe inspiring intensity and power, a foreboding atmosphere generated through lighting – the orange glows of lanterns contrasted against deep pitch black shadows of the night – and sound – the rumblings of the chuffing steam engine.  The ominous backdrop subtlety punctuated with a limited score.

Thankfully the camera doesn’t linger for long, not unnecessarily hanging there with the pretense of sitting there like some unseen observer part of the scenery.  No.  The camera here doesn’t distance or involve itself with the scenes; it seamlessly blends into it, right up to blood hitting the corner of the lens.  It’s replete with structured set-ups, slow push-ins and views distorted through warped glass windows; looking out from within the dwellings.  It is nice to see given the faux-documentary monkey-cam style which the psychologically-indolent populace seems to jerk off over.

Like with most visions, they can be quite tiresome; this comes in the way of waves; hitting the audience with occasional bouts of continued interests but at other times lulling back out into the vastness.  The pacing is slow; effectively hurt by the long running time, as the film feels drawn out focusing itself on the lives of many characters – which is realistic – however within a condensed cinematic timeframe comes off more of an annoyance, as it crops up in a way that throws off some of the more narrative and plot advancing elements.  There isn’t necessarily much of a plot in this astral-hopping experience as often it is drowning in its own lamenting nature as opposed to furthering the plot – just because it’s going for a natural realism doesn’t mean it has to move slower than dried molasses solidifying around the crust of a mule’s chafed anus.

The pacing can be overly excruciating; in a few instances I considered incurring some bodily harm to myself in hope that the bloodletting would result in some high to elevate the visuals at work.  This in itself is a testament to the cinematography, as if it was a piece of shit like Resident Evil: Extinction I would want to skin and scalp every single motherfucker in the audience.

The narration is passive; distanced from the material by the unknown presence, effectively set up as subjective account much in the way of a novel (for some reason I also think of ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle’ – except I haven’t seen any of it).  The narrator speaks over various environmental shots; picturesque scenery; time passing – mildly hypnotic, the voice, bearing the intonations appropriate of a procedural.  It essentially acts as chapter breaks without the title cards or some quote; allowing a natural drift in and out into the world.

The deaths in this film aren’t glamorized, rather cold and observing, matching into the observer format established – which becomes more interesting given the stage elements featured later.

Brad Pitt as Jesse James dominates the room; his presence imbued with a latent menace; which seldom sees the light – but resonates throughout.  The growing melancholy and pain gradually becomes more evident through the picture as James devolves.  Inversely paralleling James is the gradual evolution of the obsessed Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) his initially meek character grows resentful and countering James’ presence.  This dynamic progresses over the course of the film in which the struggle and turmoil of each of the characters.  James and Ford almost mind meld – conceptually; Ford’s aspirations to become James, his idol, and greater than him by destroying him, as opposed to James’ who appears to lose himself – growing empty, yet both experiencing paranoia.

This film is a worthy Oscar contender with solid performances throughout, particularly by Sam Rockwell in the final section of the film (especially given his screen time).  There’s even an intentional near upskirt shot, if it was full on with some bush there’d be a definite Oscar win.

The problem with procedural films for the most part is they don’t necessarily work as entertainment, and are somewhat harder to sit-through than a TV show format.  That's not to say this should be a TV-miniseries - if it was, no one would watch it.  Just the structure is more suited to the format.  For material based on real events the audience pretty much knows the story, especially when the title invokes the event; it’s just a matter of sitting through it.  In some ways it suffers from the same issues as Zodiac in this respect, however what makes this interesting is that it’s within the ‘western genre’.

All in all this is a good film; unique with a strong narrative style coupled with naturalistic cinematic elements, but ultimately is a tiresome viewing experience.

Recommended For:

Alternatives:

Rating: 6.8/10
Cumjackulation Rating: 4.0/10
(ratings explained)