Death of an outlaw

>> The Assassination of Jesse James
by the Coward Robert Ford is a
mystically meditative Western

by MARK SLUTSKY

Outlaw, thief, killer, folk hero: Jesse James was one of America’s first celebrities, his train robberies and bank hold-ups celebrated in gushing newspaper stories and dime novels. In the intervening century and a quarter since his death in 1882, he’s become a fixture in cinemas as well, with a couple dozen movies devoted to his life and times. I can’t imagine many of them, though, are anything like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, an almost mystically meditative new film from writer/director Andrew Dominik (Chopper), based on the novel of the same title by Ron Hansen.

James’s killing was at the hands of an eager young recruit, Robert Ford, who happened to be one of his biggest fans. You can see why the story takes on a certain resonance: it really does presage the culture’s current celebrity worship/death fixation.

Casey Affleck, who plays Ford in the film, boasts the kind of look I imagine on Mark David Chapman’s face. He’s sallow and jittery with a nervous, ingratiating smile, eager to prove himself to both Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and his own brother Charley (Sam Rockwell), already a member of the James gang. The movie takes place in the twilight of the gang’s career, when Jesse and Frank James (played here by Sam Shepard) had gathered a raggedy bunch of outlaws to rob trains with, all the original members besides them having been killed or imprisoned. So they take on Bob Ford and he joins their strange group, which at this point resembles something more like a troupe of actors in a Shakespeare play than a gang of cutthroats.

James and Ford’s friendship, as it is, is terse—though the younger man is eager to bask in the legend’s glow, it’s clear that he’s never allowed to get too close. Pitt is convincingly magnetic here, though inscrutable. To the end, Jesse James remains a mystery.

The Assassination of Jesse James is technically a Western, and in some ways it can be compared to James Mangold’s recent, and very good 3:10 to Yuma, as both are about fragile friendships between violent, and very different men. But while Mangold’s film was a solid genre oater, Dominik aims for something different here. He’s after something closer to a Terrence Malick film, with its poetic voiceovers, gorgeous photography, chiming score and slow, quiet pacing.

There are some wonderful moments in this movie—a train’s lights as it comes out of the darkness, people making gentle small talk with a dying man, Jesse James’s death scene. But I couldn’t help but wonder if it needed to be two hours and 40 minutes long. I respect the filmmakers’ intentions and I have nothing against long, slow, beautiful movies in general, but there were some stretches of The Assassination of Jesse James I just wasn’t onboard with. And yet, the movie does pick up in its last act, after James’s killing, with a third act that’s quite unexpected and interesting (and features Zooey Deschanel). Though it’s a matter of historical record, I won’t give it away, but the movie ends well. For its strengths, it’s worth the near three-hour commitment.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the
Coward Robert Ford opens this Friday, Oct. 19

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