Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
Andrew Dominik took his time making his follow-up to CHOPPPER, his debut feature that was largely responsible for launching the international career of Eric Bana. Second films can be make or break for filmmakers, but Dominik has turned that long hiatus into a best-case scenario, not only improving as a filmmaker, but creating something transcendent in the process.
I’ve heard many people compare the trailer for THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD to a Terrence Malick film, and I can see how the initial imagery might make someone think that. But as the film ended, it wasn’t Malick I was thinking of. Instead, I would compare this film to the heyday of Coppola, and I honestly feel like JESSE JAMES is populist art on par with THE GODFATHER. This is a leisurely film, but it’s rich and rewarding at every turn, and I found it intensely absorbing. I’m not sure what I expected, especially after hearing vague rumblings about all sorts of struggles between the filmmaker and the studio. None of that shows up onscreen, though. This is a confident film, and there’s no sign of anyone interfering in Dominik’s vision. This is one of those films where you can just get lost in it, transported completely to the time and place, and that’s a testament to just how strong a filmmaker Dominik is.
Ron Hansen’s novel is a lovely, well-researched piece. It doesn’t particularly demand translation to film. Instead, it provokes by establishing some of the big ideas that Dominik played with in his screenplay. He’s taken the book, digested it, and then created something wholly his own in terms of visual language, something particularly suited to telling this story. Working with the great Roger Deakins, he’s created an approach that burnishes the edges of the frame at times, like a fading photograph. It’s bold, but it’s not just a gimmick... a hook... it thematically underlines everything that’s going on. After all... it’s not like Jesse James is a particularly new subject for a film. It’s not like Dominik is covering virgin ground here. What, in particular, is Dominik saying with the choices he makes?
The answer lies in the way he depicts Robert Ford in the film, and the fact that he chose Casey Affleck for the role. 2007 is going to be remembered as Casey Affleck’s “moment,” thanks to the combination of this and GONE BABY GONE (which I’ll be reviewing soon), and his work in this film changed the way I thought about him as an actor. He’s amazing in this film. That may seem like a rather blunt declaration, but there’s no other way to put it. If I’m going to equate JESSE JAMES with THE GODFATHER, then Affleck got the John Cazale role, and he absolutely spot-on nails it. Robert Ford has grown up living on the edge of the West, both geographically and metaphorically. He devours the penny dreadfuls, the published exploits of the famous outlaws of the day, and he believes in the mythology that’s being spun, believes it more than he believes his own day-to-day experience. He wants to be a big famous outlaw because he’s grown up with them as pop figures. Robert Ford believes in the romance of the West.
And at times, so does Dominik. He loves the iconography. He’s obviously studied vintage photography, and he painstakingly recreates the reality of the age. At the same time, he lets his actors plays things in a very modern, naturalistic way. As with DEADWOOD, it’s the emotional reality rather than an exact loyalty to the real language of the day that makes this work. These events may have taken place a century ago, but this is a film about contemporary concerns, about things that feel urgent and immediate even now. There are more Robert Fords than ever before now, and why would we expect otherwise? We inundate people with this bullshit, this white noise of celebrity, bombarding them with the most-likely-fabricated personal lives of people we have no business giving a shit about in the first place, and then we act shocked as a culture when people develop unhealthy interests in the private lives of these public figures. Robert Ford knows who and what he is, but he rejects it. He rejects the notion of normalcy because he knows something else exists. He sees what Jesse James has become as an icon, as a figure, as a symbol, and that’s what he wants. He won’t settle for anything else. He won’t be happy just living a decent life. He needs some piece of that fame. He can’t just admire the icon; he has to ingest it, become it. The way Casey Affleck inhabits Robert Ford, the way he brings him to itchy, uncomfortable life, this is a defining portrait. This is Robert Ford as we’re going to know him now. This is the interpretation that I think will loom largest.
It’s funny... it’s hard to talk about this film without dragging DEADWOOD into the discussion at least a little bit. Garret Dillahunt was fantastic on DEADWOOD playing Jack McCall, the coward who shot and killed Wild Bill Hickok, and his character’s arc was one of the most memorable things in that show’s first year. Dillahunt shows up here as part of the James gang, Ed Miller, and he feels at home in the period. In fact, the entire gang is perfectly cast. Sam Rockwell plays Charley Ford, Jeremy Renner plays Wood Hite, Sam Shepard makes a brief appearance as Frank James, and the great Paul Schneider damn near steals the film as Dick Liddil. They’re obviously not the first guys to play these parts, and they sure as hell won’t be the last, but they manage the difficult trick of making me forget any other interpretations as I’m watching them work. I simply buy these guys as the characters, and for once, I’m not thinking about what postmodern statement is being made and I’m not thinking about THE LONG RIDERS or I SHOT JESSE JAMES or THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID or even JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER.
It helps that Brad Pitt was pretty much born to play this part. His public and private lives seem to both have been warm-up to what he brings to this role. I think Pitt is among the very best actors of his generation, and I think he has two modes: good and holy-shit-great. This is one of his holy-shit-great performances, on par with 12 MONKEYS or SE7EN or FIGHT CLUB or SNATCH. There are moments where Pitt taps something on film... not in every film, mind you, but in certain movies, and sometimes only in certain scenes... and something happens to his eyes. There are certain things I don’t think you can fake as an actor... you either tune into something real inside you, or you don’t. Madness is one of those things, and without presuming to know anything about Pitt off-camera, there is real madness in him. Real violence. Genuine fury, jet-black and ugly and just barely kept at a simmer. When he lets that simmer boil over, even if it’s just for a second or two, it’s genuinely scary. I found it oddly moving to see how he played James as a man who is so accustomed to protecting his personality that he is even a cipher to his friends and family, unable to reveal himself or relax even when he wants to. It must be horrible when your fiction eclipses your reality, and Pitt knows how to play that.
I’m excited to revisit this film so I can experience certain sequences again. There’s a robbery at the start of the film, a nighttime attack on a train, that is one of the most exciting sequences I’ve seen in anything this year, but there are at least four or five big dialogue scenes that I consider just as thrilling as set pieces. That’s uncommon these days, but a film like this is all character. What I find most thrilling is the way the film takes its time building to the inevitable. That title pretty much tells you what to expect, and I love how it is a title like you would have found on an account of these events at the time. Those books that Robert Ford read that got him so wound up in the first place? Well, this is what one of them would be called if it was about these events, and the fact that he is so definitively the villain of that title sums up the tragedy and the sorrow of the choices Ford makes in the film.
Think about it... Jesse James is one of the most famous outlaws of all time. Hell, he’s arguably one of the most famous Americans up to that point. But he is famous as a murderer and a thief, a reckless killer. When Robert Ford stopped him, he had to be imagining himself in the role of the hero to some degree, and some of my favorite material has to do with how Ford lived after the defining moment of his life. Watching the realization set in that he will never be remembered as a hero, watching it eat at him, watching it destroy his brother Charley (Sam Rockwell, always good, plays haunted as well as anyone could hope to)... Dominik makes sure to take his time with this material, because so much of what the film’s really about is contained here, after Jesse has exited the film.
There are films that I occasionally recommend with various warnings attached: “this is for very particular tastes,” “not for everyone,” “challenging.” These are all code for “some of you are going to hate this movie and hate me for recommending you see it.” Often, those are the so-called “art films,” off-mainstream fare that many audiences simply aren’t interested in. Do not make the mistake of thinking that THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD is one of those films. This is a movie that I really believe can work for any audience, even with a running time within spitting distance of three hours. This is an essentially American film, a great one, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it at the end of the year.
For now, I’ve got the morning’s updates to prepare, and more reviews for you over the course of the weekend. This film opens in limited release today, while EASTERN PROMISES goes wide and the excellent INTO THE WILD also opens some exclusive dates. Lots of options for you guys, and lots of work for me while Quint and Merrick and Harry and the Austin crew wallow in the decadent pleasures of Fantastic Fest.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
