The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” will have you wincing in discomfort for the better part of two-and-a-half hours. And when it’s over, if you’re like me, you’ll be eager to experience the pain a second time. Andrew Dominik’s odd and uncompromising psychodrama has a hypnotic cumulative effect. The title tells you everything you need to know about the plot, and Dominik, who adapted Ron Hansen’s novel, lifts long passages of third-person narration that telegraph what’s about to happen. The technique has a liberating effect, giving the viewer time to savor the nuances of even the least articulate men. Brad Pitt imbues James with intelligence, paranoia and simmering menace; he’s a master manipulator. And Casey Affleck seems to tap into a lifetime of humiliation and abject idol-worship as Ford, a self-described “nobody” who worms his way into James’s favor. The lovely score and the exquisite cinematography create an elegiac mood. But I think all these wonderful parts add up to something less than a masterpiece, because I’m not sure Dominik has much to say. He’s fixated on the cult of celebrity and determined to underline the obvious contrast between the real James and the dime-novel myth of a swashbuckling American Robin Hood. Working with the tabloid-hounded Pitt allows Dominik to draw too-cute contemporary parallels while largely ignoring the forces that shaped the historical James, like his Confederate sympathies. Still, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is a movie to chew on and savor.
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