#FILMFRIDAYS: THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD.
Year: 2007.
Dir: Andrew Dominik.
Whew! what a title. Also what a film!
The year 2007 was a great year for modern cinema. It gave us definitive cultural milestones like Coens’ No Country for Old Men and P.T. Anderson’s There will be Blood and cult classics like Fincher’s Zodiac. But one film, although met with critical acclaim, was a box office flop and has since vanished into abyss of cultural anonymity.
This film. This fucking film. And it so happens to be as good as any of them.
And it is not hard to see why the film flopped; it runs for almost 3 hours and Dominik has the balls to tell us how it ends before it even begins. The synopsis is simple. It is even in the title. A 20 year old kid named Robert Ford kills notorious outlaw, Jesse James. But the real devil is not in the story but in the telling.
Andrew Dominik, aided by excellent narration and an ever soulful and reflective score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, brilliantly exploits your knowledge of impending tragedy to create an atmosphere of dread and suspense that builds up to the titular climax of the film. Roger Deakins, arguably the greatest cinematographer of all time, does not fail with unforgettable, career-topping visual magic (I swear this film looks like heaven). But the real stars are the performances by veteran Brad Pitt and recent Best Actor Oscar winner, Casey Affleck. They infuse these characters with much needed emotional dimensionality that make them as complicated as they are compelling. All these elements result in a layered, poetic, periodic masterpiece.
Now if you have watched this film you would wonder how this has to do with coming of age. Originally the film for today was meant to be The Spectacular Now, a spectacular but more conventional coming-of-age flick. But I watched TAOJJBYCRF (!) last year and again yesterday. So while trying to come up with (usual fake deep) words for the original recommendation, I had a eureka moment. Dominik expertly explores a common coming-of-age theme that I didn’t notice during my first watch. As we grow up, we gradually deconstruct the myths that defined some of our childhood heroes or role models. The realization of reality and the acceptance of the limits of humanity can be seen in Ford’s journey from idolatry to possible rivalry and then eventual villainy.
It also shows us the influence of public perception and how volatile and flawed it can be. In a country where we selectively empathize with music making fraudsters, rapists and kidnappers but constantly vilify the actual victims in the narrative, this movie shows the lethal effects of such erroneous collective thinking.
So just Enjoy.
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