"I wonder 'bout that man that's gone so wrong" (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (DVD))

Member Name: hogsflesh

Product:	The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (DVD)
Date:	24/07/08 (220 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful to look at, intelligent, well acted

Disadvantages: Didn't like the narration, perhaps a bit too long

A review of just the film, as my DVD has no extras on it at all. It's available on amazon for about £8, although a two-disk special edition - presumably chock full of extras - is only £10. Perhaps I should have gone for that one.

This is a mournful Western released last year. Its title obviously tells you what's going to happen, and also lets you know that this is an 'art' film - no populist movie would have such a clunky name. It's also two and a half hours long and stars Brad Pitt, so I assumed it would be complete rubbish (last time I saw Pitt acting in a 'serious' film it was the risible Babel; you can see why my hopes weren't high).

Happily, though, this is a damn good film. In the 1880s the James gang - Jesse, his older brother Frank and various hangers-on - is about to call it quits. Young Robert Ford, whose older brother Charley is in the gang, is desperate to be accepted by his hero, Jesse. But he comes to understand that you can't really be friends with a man like Jesse James, and as the men's relationship becomes more complicated the film moves towards its inevitable denouement (the clue is in the title. For once it wouldn't be spoiling things to give away too much of the plot, although I'm still not going to).

Brad Pitt is Jesse, and for once he's very good indeed. He's charismatic, does the mental illness side of the character well without lapsing into actorly tedium, and flips convincingly into nastiness when he has to. There's a real sense of danger about his false bonhomie and he dominates the film even though he doesn't hog the screen-time in the way you'd expect an A-lister to do. He perhaps makes too much use of hand gestures, as if he feels that's what great actors do (see also Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut), but overall he is excellent.

Casey Affleck is also very good as Ford. An awkward, nervous kid, he builds a completely convincing character without just hiding behind his twitchy mannerisms. He's one of those characters you dislike while simultaneously feeling sorry for. The rest of the cast are very good too, although third billed Sam Shepard as Jesse's grumpy, realist older brother Frank is really only a cameo, and the womenfolk (Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel) have little to do beyond wringing their hands and looking after their menfolk. One general complaint about the acting is that some of the dialogue is incomprehensible because of excessive muttering and heavy accents; the search for verisimilitude is noble enough, but not at the expense of the audience being able to understand what's going on.

The film looks beautiful. It has some unusually fine photography and is set in bleak, muddy and snowy landscapes (allegedly Missouri, although I think it was filmed in Canada). It definitely tends more to the Unforgiven/Heaven's Gate end of the Western visual spectrum, rather than Sergio Leone's fairytale deserts. The lighting in the interior scenes is incredibly good. The music - gloomy strings and piano by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - is the perfect accompaniment to the visuals, one of the best soundtracks I've heard on a film recently. I think we could have done without Nick Cave's cameo sing-song appearance, though, if only because his accent is all wrong.

The feel of the film is elegiac, as most great Westerns tend to be. It hardly needs to be said that it deals with the end of the West and the growth of society, because that's what all Westerns are about. It manages to remind you of some of the greatest of all Westerns - The Wild Bunch, say - without being too derivative. Its examination of the processes by which gunfighters become legends is reminiscent of Unforgiven. But it's a better film than that, because it doesn't feel the need to give us a cataclysmic showdown at the end (the only gunfight in this film is a messy and inept affair in which two men repeatedly fail to shoot each other at almost point blank range).

It also - inevitably - reminds me of the recent HBO series Deadwood, although it obviously isn't anything like as good. It has hints of the same earthiness, although sadly isn't as funny or over-the-top. It's particularly reminiscent of the Wild Bill Hickock strand of Deadwood, especially the way in which the legendary gunfighters in both actively collude in their own fates. This is highlighted by the presence of the superb Garret Dillahunt in the casts of both. (Just a gentle reminder: if you haven't seen Deadwood yet you are a fool.)

A lot of people found this film too long, objecting to its rather languid pace and lengthy shots. I can kind of see their point (although I think on the big screen the lengthy shots would have been a boon). The plot seems to meander a bit in the middle, although it all ties together in the end. My main criticism is that the film has voice-over narration. It's based on a novel, so I guess it's trying to get all the information in there, but it's a rather clumsy way of divulging information in a visual medium. It's also annoying that the narrator isn't a specific character in the film telling their story; it's effectively the voice of god, which feels a bit lazy.

The director, Andrew Dominik, isn't someone I was familiar with, but I guess he's one to watch. One of the many producers was Ridley Scott (and Tony Scott was one of the Executive Producers). Normally I run a mile from anything involving either of the ghastly Scott brothers, but this is a surprisingly great film, intelligent and moving, beautiful to look at, and one which treats its audience as adults. (The exact opposite of Gladiator, in other words.) There's some violence, but it's probably a few scenes of 'strong' swearing early on that earn this its 15 certificate. It's the best American film I've seen for ages.

Summary: A great recent Western