I don’t know if it was the paragraph long title of the 1880 period drama “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (2007) that kept this movie under the radar, but somehow this movie went relatively unnoticed. I am a big fan of these modern, stylistic period movies, but I have become more than a fan for this movie. I wouldn’t call it an obsession, more along the lines of a healthy appreciation. This film has it all: music, acting, cinematography, and a fantastic dual-personal story of two iconic figures of American history. But it has a nostalgic and modern pairing of early cinema as well.
The writer for the screen and director of the film, Andrew Dominik, showed this appreciation of early cinema in several ways. One incorporates both narration as well as the cinematography itself. During a scene, while narrating, the screen would go blurry in both the left and right side, leaving only the center portion in focus. This is very similar to the primitive cameras used during the industries birth. Another great technique used by the director was the color pallet used on screen. This pallet is not without color, but greatly muted. Heavy blacks, bright whites, and every shade of brown, a color scheme nearly identical to the early nitrate film, the movies were printed on. I especially loved the darker scenes, when all the blacks used on screen are blended together in one, almost solid, mass, much like a black hole, no detail, nothing. Although this movie is shot in a very modern style, with a great mix of both close ups, point-of-views, long shots, and medium shots, but because of the techniques employed by the director I mentioned above, it has an almost historical weight, and not solely because it is a historical film.
On the subject of history, I believe this film shows an accurate portrayal of the class system, especially outlaws. It shows most of these men as uneducated and almost sexually obsessed. The narrator said “the James Gang committed twenty-five bank, train, and stage coach robberies”. And toward the end of their rein (1867-1881) there were only two original members left, Jesse and his brother. The rest “were either in jail or dead”. This idea is similar to the gangster portrayal in Oscar Micheaux’s, “Within Our Gates”. But unlike Micheaux’s film, there are only white people, men and women, in Dominik’s film. The portrayal of these women is very simple. They are to be housewives, or sexual pursuits. The women in this film are shown rarely and stereotypically. They are either cooking, cleaning, tending to the kids, their husbands or falling to the deceptively slick words of Dick Liddle.
The fact that most people have not heard of this movie, or know little or nothing about it, makes me want to kick them in the head. And when I am done maybe I will realize the reason people don’t get it is because we naturally associate Jesse James with action. This film takes part in the last year of Jesse’s life, and through the entire film, only in the beginning does it show a train robbery. This movie is about obsession; whether it be Bob Ford meticulously analyzing every tick, gesture, or way of speech of Jesse, or Jesse’s own obsession with trust. But more than this, it is a tragedy. A boy obsessed with grandeur and notoriety, to stick out from dusty herd, but failing spectacularly in every attempt. Bob Ford is Jesse James doppelganger, his evil twin, his shadow. This film shows that America has hardly changed in almost a century and a half. We still value our rock stars, athletes, and actors more than we do justice. That is what Jesse James was—a rock star. And if Bob is anything, he is the jury or judge. They called Robert Ford an assassin, and a coward, and just as how Jesse reached his end, so did Bob.
“Edward O Kelley came up from Bachelor at 1 pm on the eighth. He had no grand scheme, no strategy, no agreement with higher authorities. Nothing beyond a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against Robert Ford. Edward O Kelley would be ordered to serve a life sentence in the Colorado penitentiary for second degree murder. Seven thousand signatures would be eventually gathered on a petition asking for Kelley’s release. And in 1902, governer James B Oreman would pardon the man. There would be no eulogies for Bob. No photographs of his body would be sold in sundry stores. No people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral. No biographies would be written about him. No children named after him. No one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in”.
Jesse would be shown in print alongside the sphinx, Taj Mahal, and the catacombs of Rome, for murdering seventeen people, and robbing hundreds, most of which were innocent civilians.
The writer for the screen and director of the film, Andrew Dominik, showed this appreciation of early cinema in several ways. One incorporates both narration as well as the cinematography itself. During a scene, while narrating, the screen would go blurry in both the left and right side, leaving only the center portion in focus. This is very similar to the primitive cameras used during the industries birth. Another great technique used by the director was the color pallet used on screen. This pallet is not without color, but greatly muted. Heavy blacks, bright whites, and every shade of brown, a color scheme nearly identical to the early nitrate film, the movies were printed on. I especially loved the darker scenes, when all the blacks used on screen are blended together in one, almost solid, mass, much like a black hole, no detail, nothing. Although this movie is shot in a very modern style, with a great mix of both close ups, point-of-views, long shots, and medium shots, but because of the techniques employed by the director I mentioned above, it has an almost historical weight, and not solely because it is a historical film.
On the subject of history, I believe this film shows an accurate portrayal of the class system, especially outlaws. It shows most of these men as uneducated and almost sexually obsessed. The narrator said “the James Gang committed twenty-five bank, train, and stage coach robberies”. And toward the end of their rein (1867-1881) there were only two original members left, Jesse and his brother. The rest “were either in jail or dead”. This idea is similar to the gangster portrayal in Oscar Micheaux’s, “Within Our Gates”. But unlike Micheaux’s film, there are only white people, men and women, in Dominik’s film. The portrayal of these women is very simple. They are to be housewives, or sexual pursuits. The women in this film are shown rarely and stereotypically. They are either cooking, cleaning, tending to the kids, their husbands or falling to the deceptively slick words of Dick Liddle.
The fact that most people have not heard of this movie, or know little or nothing about it, makes me want to kick them in the head. And when I am done maybe I will realize the reason people don’t get it is because we naturally associate Jesse James with action. This film takes part in the last year of Jesse’s life, and through the entire film, only in the beginning does it show a train robbery. This movie is about obsession; whether it be Bob Ford meticulously analyzing every tick, gesture, or way of speech of Jesse, or Jesse’s own obsession with trust. But more than this, it is a tragedy. A boy obsessed with grandeur and notoriety, to stick out from dusty herd, but failing spectacularly in every attempt. Bob Ford is Jesse James doppelganger, his evil twin, his shadow. This film shows that America has hardly changed in almost a century and a half. We still value our rock stars, athletes, and actors more than we do justice. That is what Jesse James was—a rock star. And if Bob is anything, he is the jury or judge. They called Robert Ford an assassin, and a coward, and just as how Jesse reached his end, so did Bob.
“Edward O Kelley came up from Bachelor at 1 pm on the eighth. He had no grand scheme, no strategy, no agreement with higher authorities. Nothing beyond a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against Robert Ford. Edward O Kelley would be ordered to serve a life sentence in the Colorado penitentiary for second degree murder. Seven thousand signatures would be eventually gathered on a petition asking for Kelley’s release. And in 1902, governer James B Oreman would pardon the man. There would be no eulogies for Bob. No photographs of his body would be sold in sundry stores. No people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral. No biographies would be written about him. No children named after him. No one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in”.
Jesse would be shown in print alongside the sphinx, Taj Mahal, and the catacombs of Rome, for murdering seventeen people, and robbing hundreds, most of which were innocent civilians.
There's a lot going on in this post, Rand. The cinematography (and that blurred-at-the-edges effect, which mimics old photographs) was praised a lot when this movie came out.
ReplyDeleteThis film picks up on a lot of ideas we'll see later, especially in the gangster cycle.