Reel historyPeriod and historical filmsThe Assassination of Jesse James: a gloomy Hamlet in the wild west
This Brad Pitt vehicle scores high marks for historical accuracy and lovely cinematography, but gosh does it need to be so solemn?Director: Andrew Dominik
Entertainment grade: D
History grade: A–
Jesse James was an outlaw in 19th-century Missouri, remembered in legend as the Robin Hood of the wild west. History takes a bleaker view, revealing him to have been a psychopathic ex-Confederate guerrilla who fought a brutal terrorist campaign in support of the slaveholding south, before moving on to armed robbery for personal profit. He was murdered in 1882 by Robert Ford, a member of his own gang, for a $10,000 reward.
Crime
The James-Younger gang is in Blue Cut, Missouri, to rob a train. James himself is shown to be a greedy thug with a penchant for smashing people's faces in. It's true about the face-smashing but, other than that, reports of the Blue Cut robbery suggest the real James was in relatively good humour. He delivered a long rant against the railroad corporations, bragged about himself, and allegedly fetched a wet handkerchief to revive a woman who fainted, before giving her back the dollar he had stolen from her.
People
Following this brief flurry of excitement, the film settles into a ponderous rota of lingering landscape shots and the occasional explosion of rough banter between incomprehensibly-accented bandits. Brad Pitt plays James as Hamlet: he wears big coats made of wolfskins, wanders gloomily on to frozen ponds to contemplate existential questions, and alternates moments of tenderness with raging fury. It's a supportable biographical portrait. Frustratingly, though, director Andrew Dominik is bent on keeping the style as solemn and remote as possible, rendering Pitt's performance almost too historically accurate. It's correct to the letter of the available sources, but communicates little sense of James as a human being.
Exposition
Showing James casually beating up innocent people might not make the point clearly enough if you're a really recalcitrant fan, so the screenplay proclaims at regular intervals that this outlaw was no hero. "You'll hear some fools say he's getting back at Republicans and Union men for the wrongs his family suffered during the war," the governor of Missouri explains to Robert Ford. "But his victims have scarcely been selected with reference to their political views." Clunk.
Murder
Finally, Ford gets his moment. In a painstaking reconstruction of the real-life scene, James uncharacteristically lays down his gunbelt, turns his back on it, and walks to the other side of the room to dust a painting of a horse. Ford seizes a gun and shoots him in the back of the head. The film suggests an intriguing interpretation of James letting his guard down at this moment, an odd piece of behaviour that has always puzzled biographers. You'll have to see the movie to find out what.
Music
Ford is drowning his sorrows in a bar when who should turn up but Nick Cave (composer of the exquisite soundtrack), wearing a bowler hat and a handlebar moustache, and singing a jolly folk song about "that dirty little coward" Robert Ford. This cameo by a modern rock star delivers a massive jolt to the movie's hypnotic serenity, which isn't entirely a bad thing. Cave would have been less incongruous in the 1986 TV version of James's life, which featured an all-star country and western cast: Kris Kristofferson as Jesse, Johnny Cash as Frank, June Carter Cash as, er, their mother, and Willie Nelson as Confederate general Joseph O Shelby. It may not be as accurate as this one, but it sounds a damn sight livelier.
Verdict
This is a superbly researched and visually stunning historical film, but it doesn't do justice to its own story. Too often, the monotonous voiceover recounts events which sound a lot more interesting than anything happening onscreen, while the audience is left watching endless shots of snowy fields and rickety furniture. Jesse James remains a distant figure and, despite a compelling performance by Casey Affleck, even the potentially fascinating Robert Ford is reined in until the last half hour of the runtime. As a result, the movie is accurate without being enlightening.
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