wow

Rating: 10/10 (31 July 2010)

Oddly enough, the movie line that came to me as I watched the closing of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is, "I am haunted by waters." I assume the Brad Pitt connection made that inevitable, perhaps with my subconscious seeing Pitt's Paul Maclean as the type boy who under the same circumstances could become a Jesse James.
Those who know the James family saga and do not judge it by the standards of post-Civil War/Reconstruction clichés, and perhaps especially those who also know the story of Australia's Iron Outlaw Ned Kelly, will understand.
Because of the era and west of the Mississippi setting, most viewers will come to this film expecting a Western. The vast majority of those will also expect more action than this film delivers. But to its great merit, The Assassination of Jesse James is not what most would label a 'typical' Western. It is finely etched character study of three men: Jesse, Bob Ford, and his older brother Charlie. Each of the three actors is stunning in his portrayal, with Pitt so disciplined that his performance will strike most viewers as almost innocuous. I easily can make a case for Affleck as having deserved an Oscar and another for Rockwell having deserved a nomination.
Like Unforgiven, this film shows us the problems that come from media created and endlessly vomited celebrity by making the nickel/dime novels central to the action. Those products of mass produced reading material utterly falsifying the West, romanticizing both outlaws and the lawmen and privately hired killers sent after bank and train robbers, have forged the young Bob Ford into a hero worshiper who, somewhat like the later Mark David Chapman, will kill the object of his romanticized adoration.
The Assassination of Jesse James fails to genuflect before any clichés or political platitudes. Jesse is ruthless to protect himself and his identity, and he is shown being needlessly violent in the train robbery. But he also appears to be a man who would shuck it all to become something of a homebody (riding off on real cattle buying trips with Frank) if he were not caught in the trap of his own past and celebrity. Jesse, like a Greek tragic hero, seem to welcome, Even encourage, his death from behind.
Bob is the ridiculously worshipful boy, teased by the older men, who comes to resent the object of his adoration, perhaps when he realizes that Jesse is indeed just a man, a complex, flawed man. Then the threats and rewards from the powers of government and big business are snares he will not evade. Bob then becomes the celebrity, playing himself on stage killing Jesse James: the absurd world of the dime Western brought to life for Monet city folk back east. Bob Ford, who had become the dancing bear for the rich folks who paid for Jesse's death, dies much as did Jesse: essentially a tragic figure, that which made him great inevitably marring his final days and striking him down.