Andrew Dominik's 2007 Western is both fascinating and frustrating. On my first viewing two years ago I found absorbing and declared it a masterpiece, one of the decade's best and perhaps a high-point for the Western genre. Rewatching it a month ago, however, I found it long, interminable and hard to sit through. Perhaps it was a question of mood, but undoubtedly the movie is frustrating by its nature.
While the action-packed, audience-friendly remake of 3:10 to Yuma got a wide release and did respectable business, The Assassination of Jesse James got almost no release and, despite glowing critical reviews and a few Oscar nods, more or less vanished. It's easy to see why. Long, artsy and pretentious, Jesse James almost defies audience attempts to be engrossed in it. It's ultimately more interesting as an experience than a great film.
Legendary outlaw Jesse James (Brad Pitt) is nearing the end of his career: most of his gang is dead or in prison, he is being hunted by Pinkerton agents, and he has to rely on newcomers like Bob Ford (Casey Affleck) and his brother Charlie (Sam Rockwell). Bob idolizes Jesse, having read of his accounts for years, and his attentions begin to unnerve the outlaw. Still, Bob and Charlie drift in and out of Jesse's life as Jesse deals with inter-gang dissention, including an attempt by Jim Cummins and Ed Miller (Garret Dillahunt) to betray him, and the fall out of Dick Liddel's (Paul Schneider) liaison with the cousin (Kailin See) of a fellow gang member (Jeremy Renner). As the increasingly paranoid Jesse begins to settle accounts, Bob and Charlie decide to turn Jesse in, dead or alive.
Jesse James is perhaps the West's most romanticized outlaw, the unrepentant Confederate Robin Hood who continued the Civil War by robbing Yankee banks and trains. It's all hooey, of course, but it makes for a great myth, and Hollywood has not been lax in telling his story. Henry King's 1939 Jesse James was a straight retelling of the traditional myth. Samuel Fuller's I Shot Jesse James (1949) refocused the story on James's killer, but had the sensibility of a lurid penny-dreadful. The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972) and The Long Riders (1980) added a dark, revisionist edge to the story. The latest James film was the abysmal American Outlaws (2001), a Young Guns-style shoot-'em-up which revived the old myth as a pure cartoon.
Dominik's take on James, while taking its cue from the Fuller film (several scenes are copied almost verbatim), is barely a Western at all. Though it contains requisite set pieces - a train robbery, a shootout - it plays more like a slow, moody period piece than a Western, a Missouri Barry Lyndon. The violence is muted and blunt, the big shootout a fumbling, bloody affair; long, in-depth talking scenes (with wonderfully rustic period dialogue) take up more time. It's revisionism at its most stark, replacing genre tropes with gritty realism. It seems like a Western made for people who don't like Westerns.
Dominik's direction is technically excellent but adds to the difficulties. The story is elliptical and almost dream-like, with plot points lazily dealt with or abandoned, actions hinted at but never taken, long swaths of time passed over in montages. Warren Ellis and Nick Cave's brooding score adds a lot to the film's atmosphere. Rodger Deakin's impressive cinematography unspools with the deliberation of a Kubrick or Mallick film, striking images existing both for their own sake and to advance the story; the only complaint is an overuse of time-elapse photography. More tiresome is a hectoring, obnoxious narration that says too much for no real reason.
Despite its visual grandeur, Jesse James is most effective as a straight drama and character study. The film omits James's most memorable exploits, showing him at the end of his rope: paranoid and fatalistic, yet foolish enough to trust the Fords and to believe he has a future as an outlaw. His relationship with Bob is the center of the film, and the most interesting strand of the story. The infatuated, hero-worshipping Bob is a creep who helps codify Jesse's downfall: if he's relying on guys like Bob Ford, he must be in dire straits. Unlike in I Shot Jesse James, Bob has no noble motive for his betrayal, merely fear and self-preservation. These two make a fascinating pair of protagonists, and the story's deviations from their relationship - the lengthy Dick Liddel-Wood Hite spat - seem almost superfluous.
For all the problems getting there, the conclusion is excellent. The brilliant scene where Bob finally kills Jesse is a remarkable set-piece, and the final twenty minutes, with Ford haunted by his fame - forced to relive the assassination in a stage play again and again - are rivetting and appropriately tragic. These scenes are served well by the pervasive melancholy, with characters stiffly acting out a pre-ordained fate. Both men were hounded by notoriety, but Jesse escapes it through death; Ford becomes "the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard," perversely demonized for killing a criminal.
Brad Pitt is excellent: his persona enhances James's star quality and mythological stature, but Pitt divests himself of his usual mannerisms and makes James believable brooding, charming, violent and fatalistic. Casey Affleck is pitch-perfect though one wonders why James trusts such a snivelling creep. The supporting cast is hit-or-miss, though through no fault of the actors. Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon) is solid as Ford's brother, and Sam Shepard makes an excellent Frank James. Female leads Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel are reduced to cameos. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), Garret Dillahunt (No Country For Old Men), Ted Levine (Shutter Island) and Paul Schneider have memorable small parts.
The Assassination of Jesse James is not entirely successful as a Western, and for all its virtues will probably alienate a lot of viewers. It probably could have been told a lot more economically and conventionally, but it stands as a unique viewing experience for those with the patience.
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