The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Review
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I watched "Jesse James"via DVD this morning before coming to work.Actually the DVD was a Christmas present from 2008,I think.I sat it aside,because I heard it was a uninteresting,long,expensive,pretentious,took forever to make by a second film,perfectionist,New Zealander director who's a T. Malick wanna-be,and the film just did not work.
The film I watched is a masterpiece.I was surprised,and couldn't take my eyes off the screen.Jesse James is director Dominic's beautiful,raw,vision of the age-old Frank and Jesse story with an ending we all know.So what's different about this "oater"?
Well,its the great,complex performances by Pitt and co.It's Dominic's lurid,timed,melodic use of cinematic imagery that's at least hypnotic.It's cinematography soooo good,and soooo beautiful,that it becomes a character entity just as powerful as any or all of the actors.It's the dark,sinister,murderous,paranoid,over the top Jesse James presented to us through Pitt's brilliant,schizophrenic,interpretation of a character,said to be a hero,gone worse than bad,doomed from the start of the film,as the evil of bad men should be.It's the cramped,realism of the smokey,interiors,of little farm houses that set stark on lonely,snow covered vistas,where the hint of violence is omnipresent.It's the 2hr and 40 minutes of quality moviemaking you get to experience,which of course is an experience that's few and far between...
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Feature
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Overview
Everyone in 1880s America knows Jesse James. He’s the nation’s most notorious criminal, hunted by the law in 10 states. He’s also the land’s greatest hero, lauded as a Robin Hood by the public. Robert Ford? No one knows him. Not yet. But the ambitious 19-year-old aims to change that. He’ll befriend Jesse, ride with his gang. And if that doesn’t bring Ford fame, he’ll find a deadlier way. Friendship becomes rivalry and the quest for fame becomes obsession in this virile epic produced in part by Ridley Scott and featuring gripping portrayals by Brad Pitt (winner of the Venice Film Festival Best Actor Award) as Jesse and Casey Affleck as the youth drawn closer to his goal…and farther from his own humanity.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Specifications
Of all the movies made about or glancingly involving the 19th-century outlaw Jesse Woodson James, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the most reflective, most ambitious, most intricately fascinating, and indisputably most beautiful. Based on the novel of the same name by Ron Hansen, it picks up James late in his career, a few hours before his final train robbery, then covers the slow catastrophe of the gang's breakup over the next seven months even as the boss himself settles into an approximation of genteel retirement. But in another sense all of the movie is later than that. The very title assumes the audience's familiarity with James as a figure out of history and legend, and our awareness that he was--will be--murdered in his parlor one quiet afternoon by a backshooting crony.
The film--only the second to be made by New Zealand–born writer-director Andrew Dominik--reminds us that Dominik's debut film, Chopper (2000), was the cunningly off-kilter portrait of another real-life criminal psychopath who became a kind of rock star to his society. The Jesse James of this telling is no Robin Hood robbing the rich to give to the poor, and that train robbery we witness is punctuated by acts of gratuitous brutality, not gallantry. Nineteen-year-old Bob Ford (Casey Affleck) seeks to join the James gang out of hero worship stoked by the dime novels he secretes under his bed, but his glam hero (Brad Pitt) is a monster who takes private glee in infecting his accomplices with his own paranoia, then murdering them for it. In the careful orchestration of James's final moments, there's even a hint that he takes satisfaction in his own demise.
Affleck and Pitt (who co-produced with Ridley Scott, among others) are mesmerizing in the title roles, but the movie is enriched by an exceptional supporting cast: Sam Shepard as Jesse's older, more stable brother Frank; Sam Rockwell as Bob Ford's own brother Charlie, whose post-assassination descent into madness is astonishing to behold; Paul Schneider, Garret Dillahunt, and Jeremy Renner as three variously doomed gang members; and Mary-Louise Parker, who as Jesse's wife Zee has few lines yet manages with looks and body language to invoke a wellnigh-novelistic backstory for herself. There are also electrifying cameos by James Carville, doing solid actorly work as the governor of Missouri; Ted Levine, as a lawman of antic spirit; and Nick Cave, composer of the film's score (with Warren Ellis) and screenwriter of the Aussie "Western" The Proposition, suddenly towering over a late scene to perform the folk song that set the terms for the book and movie's title.
Still, the real costar is Roger Deakins, probably the finest cinematographer at work today. The landscapes of the movie (mostly in Alberta and Manitoba) will linger in the memory as long as the distinctive faces, and we seem to feel the sting of its snows on our cheeks. Interior scenes are equally persuasive. Few Westerns have conveyed so tangibly the bleakness and austerity of the spaces people of the frontier called home, and sought in vain to warm with human spirit. --Richard T. Jameson
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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Arnita D. Brown - USA
In 1881, a younger member of the notorious Jesse James gang becomes so inextricably drawn to and frightened of his mentor that his own delusions of grandeur force him to consider doing the unthinkable. This movie is a haunting retelling of one of the enduring outlaw sagas in American culture. This movie is a poetic saga that offers a fresh and bewitching take on the life of Jesse James. A brilliant movie with a satisfying surprise.
A tiresome experience - R. Attila - Hungary
If Jesse James was really so void of personality and depth as Brad Pitt portrays him to be, then there should never have been a movie about him. There are attempts to give the guy some soul, but it doesn't work. I don't know why, maybe Pitt simply can't help being himself, and brings to the screen a very confused man who tries to be cool, cocky and depressed at the same time, but you feel it doesn't make for natural viewing at all. Even the way he speaks sounds very unnatural. He finds it very hard to play anything but himself.
The only redeeming feature, and the only engaging character in this film is Robert Ford, played by a magnificent Casey Affleck. He's the only guy one can connect with, even though he's a misguided, delusional youth.
That's where the compliments end. Because the film sets out as a deep character study of people without character, and cares not a iota about thrilling or entertaining with plots, it turns out to be one loooong failure. 3 out of 10.
