The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford

It's a bit on the strange side that I managed to fit in one final film before the Oscar show last night, thus permitting me to say that I had seen all the best supporting actor nominations. It also allowed me to say I had seen all the cinematography nominees as well. I guess what is odd is not that I saw it but that it was so fresh in my mind that it seemed like a travesty of justice that "Assassination" didn't win the award for best cinematography. And I know I'm open to criticism because I saw this film literally right before the show but let me give you some more data. I saw "No Country For Old Men" four times in the theater. I saw "There Will Be Blood" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" each twice. I saw "Atonement" only once I admit. Not a one of these films wasn't visually beautiful.

But "Assassination" was the most consistently beautiful and perhaps the most beautifully shot film of anything I saw released in 2007. Hell of the films I saw last year the only one that might actually be more beautiful was Andrei Tarkovsky's "Ivan's Childhood". And I think testament to how well it was filmed is that I could gauge this not on the big screen or after multiple viewings (I tend to be a story/character detailed viewer) but on my television after just one viewing. Who would have thought, this shot needs a fish eye lens? I would submit to you the only exhibit you will need to judge this film is visually off the charts.

Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and his gang are fixing to rob the Blue Cut Train line. They've piled a barricade on the tracks and along comes the train. As it turns the bend in the dark night, its headlamp leaves merely a shadow of Jesse as he walks ahead of the train onto the barricade. The train brakes and we see a close up of the engine and then back to Jesse standing atop the barricade. The train stops on the spot billowing steam which rushes forth concealing Jesse and the whole screen. My words can do it no justice but I re-watched it two or three times just to marvel in how well it was done.

"Assassination" picks up in Jesse's life not in his heyday but rather near the end. We are introduced to the film with a gentle voiced narrator who utters factoids in an almost awestruck way. For in part this film is dealing with the establishment of mythos and cult of personality that surrounds Jesse James. I'm typically not one for voice over but this time it so contrasts with what we see that its hard to grip with at first. Is this about heroization? Or deheroization? Does our insight into Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) tell us anything interesting?

The story follows mainly Ford and his interaction with James in the final year of his life. Despite reservation by Jesse's brother Frank (Sam Shepard), Jesse takes Ford into his company. Ford is a bit on the obsessive side when it comes to what he knows and thinks he knows about Jesse. That this obsession will eventually lead to murder is not that big of a leap. Bob is frequently teased and mocked for his obsession by his brother, his friends and even by Jesse himself. The film itself falls into three parts of varying length. The opening establishes our characters and our story. The end is coda to Jesse as it follows Ford from his (in)famous job to the end of his life. The middle is a long discursive that I suspect tries the patience of many viewers.

But I would argue it is this middle that holds together what would otherwise be just a series of pretty shots and a fairly interesting narrative. It is Bob Ford's obsessive nature and his family life and everything else that is developed here. His understandable paranoia complicated by the already mythic level of the Jesse James Persona. At the same time we seem to see an increasing paranoia in Jesse either. One not so clearly understood. His behavior is erratic at times destructive. There are certainly some times when the myth seems to be reinforced by preternatural sense of wrong but this doesn't stop him from keeping association with the Ford brothers.

The coda which occurs after the titular act of the title deals with the public response to Ford's action. The notion of infamy arising instead of fame and the remorse of betrayal are laid out in a neat patter while our mythic narrator remains and comments on Ford's life. It de-constructs or perhaps constructs its own mythos about Ford. Not a coward but rather a bullied weak willed boy who found solace in the myth of Jesse which couldn't live up to the reality. Perhaps a traitor but the implication that he himself would be killed by Jesse was never absent.

Affleck's Ford is equal parts vulnerable and creepy. His eager introduction followed by almost unnoticed rejection is brilliant. Equally brilliant is his introduction to Frank James. Shepard's Frank plays off him brilliantly picking up on the unease and taking dislike to him right off. Pitt's more taciturn Pitt is quite aware of his mythos and seems party intrigued by Ford. A handful of recognizable faces round out a very well constructed cast including Sam Rockwell and Garret Dillahunt. But Affleck really shines here more so than his fine performance in "Gone Baby Gone".

Well acted and exceptionally well shot are pretty good as recommendations but what I found fascinating obviously was an incredibly intricate notion of legend and its pitfalls that I guess had the academic in my fascinated. Add in the way it riffs on the traditional Western plot lines in a fairly creative way (and westerns were staples of my cinematic adolescence) and this one quickly earns a spot in my top favorite films of last year.