The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Studio: Warner Bros.
Rated: R
Cast: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck
Director: Andrew Dominik
WorkNameSort: Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The
Our Rating: 4.50
The title is really long, and so is the film, but it has every reason to be. Filling his characters’ curt conversations with pauses, director Andrew Dominik uses the epic length to go places in the title characters’ lives nobody has gone before – namely, playing the homoerotic card. In the eyes of Dominik, who scripted the movie based on Ron Hansen’s 1983 novelization of James’ last days, Ford killed what he couldn’t have. He was a victim of a repressive society close to a hundred years before Jake Gyllenhaal wished he could quit Heath Ledger, as the numerous, aching shots of his lustful gazes at Jesse unsubtly inform us.
Casey Affleck, who plays Ford, has said that he wished the title could have been The Assassination of Jesse James by the Misunderstood Robert Ford, and the heavily played-up angle of celebrity obsession-turned–physical longing from Ford to Jesse is a great place to start myth-busting the falsified way history remembers both men. Dominik’s revisionist take understands that Ford’s legacy was not that of a guilt-ridden man coming to terms with his cowardice but a confused kid whose pressures from authorities to exploit his closeness with Jesse for the good of the country coincided with his frustration at not being able to be/have Jesse himself.
The queer theory isn’t the only subtextual reference point here; there’s also the mafia film. Ford and James (played by Brad Pitt) are but two of the characters in an ensemble that reimagines the James story as a mob saga in the milieu of a Western. There’s no honor among thieves, as the elliptical plot finds the gang members shifting from friends to enemies with one penetrating look from James. Pitt is at his most understated and menacing, often working without words to craft a character that breaks down the romanticized image of James as a virtuous Robin Hood, showing him at his most sadistic and tyrannical.
A flawless supporting cast of Sam Rockwell, Paul Schneider, Sam Shepard, Mary-Louise Parker and even cameos by James Carville and Nick Cave help to realize the director’s vision of reconciling the James legend with the “reality,” speculative as it may be. Eschewing John Ford’s oft-quoted advice to “print the legend,” The Assassination of Jesse James instead chooses historical accuracy, a move that could make this epic unpalatable to a mass audience. But this contemplative movie is worth your patience.
This article appears in Oct 17-23, 2007.