The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

[JG]

you're sort of right.  i'm happy i didn't write a review right after i saw this, cos i was ready to dismiss it as too long.  i was probably going to mention how there a lot of great images and moments in this movie that are really weighed by not-totally-necessary scenes, but the bad stuff has sort of edited itself out of my brain and what lingers are those really excellent moments.  pitt is good yeah, but the movie is not about him, he's as much a mystery at the end of the movie as he was in the beginning.  affleck is the star here, a big bright, shining star.  watching his character slowly reveal himself during the course of the movie is a pretty great thing.  paul schneider is the bomb too. 

so yeah i still don't know if it think its good or great (i think i was the same with the fountain - i decided it was just good).  we'll see how it holds up over time but its definitely worth checking out. 

[bigperm]

Sorry, I haven't posted in sometime, but I float in and out of the site often, I really don't have much else to offer, it did feel long, but that feeling came & went, completely worthy of a theater viewing, wonderful elements across the board, I did think the script was uneven, but after a few days now, I still have may images and moments lingering in my mind.

[w/o horse]

I did think the script was uneven, but after a few days now, I still have may images and moments lingering in my mind.

[Sunrise]

This film is phenomenal. I posted a review here (http://chetmellema.blogspot.com/2007/10/screenings-assassination-of-jesse-james.html) but it's not really the type of writing for the message board. Check it out and comment if you want.

The Malick comparisons are more than coincidental. The musical cues that Dominik uses to connect scenes and during montages I will swear is IDENTICAL to some of the cues used in Days of Heaven. Also, the Days-type-cues are present in the film during the time at the beginning when Sam Shepherd is in the film. As soon as he exits the film, so do the score cues. I found that to be a direct, and appropriate, homage to Days of Heaven. Some may see it as something else.

Regardless, please see this film.

[bonanzataz]

overall, i liked it. casey affleck was the tits. he's always (clearly) been the better of the two afflecks. his performance and the fact that the story was strong/interesting enough distracted from the over-directing that was going on. guy had clearly been watching malick films and mccabe and mrs miller on a loop for a year. there were moments where the film has its own legs, moments that still stick out in my mind if i think about the film, but too often scenes were underscored by the narration and landscape shots that one couldn't help but make malick comparisons.

i never had a problem with the length of the film, but i think i was in the right mood for this one on that day.

[Pozer]

yes, this was really good.  It is VERY Malick esque.  It is absolutely goregeous mostly do to an extraordinary mix of epic cinematography and perfect music.  

p.s. finally saw the BLOOD trailer on the big screen.  20x better.

[Gamblour.]

If I could write down my feelings, it would be most of what Ghostboy said and some of what Mod said.

I nearly missed this movie too. It's only playing at one theater, a Lefont about half an hour away, and it's out of the theaters tomorrow. But because of the timing, I had to go to the one at 6:40 -- middle of rush hour. It took me a whole hour to get there, and I was tire-peeling and flooring it to find the fucking theater, because I'm smart and don't like addresses. I had to ask someone, it was behind the shopping center. Anyway, I was running into the theater, and I hear, "WHY DON'T I OWN THIS?" Too bad, because I had to pee, and I knew the movie was looong. Missed the TWBB trailer, but I'd seen already...sigh.

Casey Affleck is INCREDIBLE in this. I don't care how good DDL is in TWBB, but Affleck's got my Xixax award (at least the nomination). He evokes such a sense of unease and nervous tension, not in the annoying Jeremy Davies way, but in the way of people you might know. Those who can't quite cope with being awkward or made fun of, but know that they are. His manner is SO compelling, it's truly incredible. The directing does a lot to make it work as well.

As for Brad Pitt's best performance? People will keep saying that and no one will give a shit. People said it with Babel. Personally, I think he peaked with Twelve Monkeys. He's never really been that immersed in his roles, always definitely just plain Brad Pitt with everything. However, I will give him that this role, this character is his best to date and that he shows more depth and brings interesting perspective to this character, more than he has in the past. Ok fuck it, it's his best performance.

And yes! Paul Schneider is really great in it, basically reviving that All the Real Girls character. Funny that Zooey is also in the film, however uselessly and briefly. I did have higher hopes for Sam Rockwell, I assumed he was always had some chops. Here, he's a bit overdone. Just a bit.

This movie makes want to run out and see Gone Baby Gone. I liked the movie, but I LOVED Affleck's performance.

[The Red Vine]

The film is an incredible leap back to Western origins. It's about character and motivations, instead of gun battles or plot. The cinematography was very Malick-esque but what surprised me was how the performances were so interior. Pitt and Affleck rose to the challenge far better than I would have predicted.

I have mixed feelings about the middle section which could have been trimmed of unnecessary plot details, yet the film's length allowed for the characters and setting to resonate with me.

Probably my second favorite film of the year (so far), next to Zodiac.

[children with angels]

I didn't think this was very good. It had some nice things (interesting story [told before], and nice long scenes - a treat these days), but overall I was disappointed (I'd been looking forward to it quite a lot). Normally I'd write a more coherent response but I'm tired so I'll just say a few things in no order.

The film claims to deconstruct western myths (a project that was already done better than this by films like MacCabe and Mrs Miller and Buffalo Bill and the Indians back in the 70s, and has been done better since), but it felt pretty much entirely inauthentic. The prettiness of the cinematography got in the way of a convincing period feel, and the mise-en-scene was so damn sparse, there just wasn't the accumulation of weight of things and meaning that would make me more convinced by the world it was showing me.

This wasn't helped by how obsessed with close-ups and medium-shots the director was - so much so that sometimes I didn't even understand the spatial relationships between characters. I didn't feel there was much intelligence behind the camera in terms of shooting style. People are comparing it to Malick, but Malick knows how to make interesting meaning with his framing and his editing. This felt a little like Control stylistically: nice to look at, but pretty empty. (and what was with the constant fuzzy vaseline effect? It got used so often, considering how cheesy pointless it was).

And the voice over... Well, I'd be interested to hear other people's views on it. Was it supposed to be ironically storytelling-y like one of the books Ford reads?: is that why it was so overly-present and stands in for images telling us things (as happens in good films)? To try to show the disparity between the myth and the truth (which the film as a whole doesn't do)? I thought so at first, because it seemed actually a bit detached from the action (he tells us James blinks all the time - he doesn't), but then there were other moments where things happened that were precisely acting out what the voiceover says. So... I don't know. All in all, I just wasn't very impressed.

EDIT: Looking back, I see that this is possibly the first time Ghostboy and I have ever significantly disagreed about a film.

[Gamblour.]

As far as the narration goes, and I kinda hate comparing it, but it's a bit like Ricky Jay to me in Magnolia. And in that way, I think you hit a good point about it being narrated like one of the books Robert read. It has authority over the history, and therefore knows when irony occurs and points it out. And because of this it takes on an opinion about the whole situation, about Robert Ford. Mainly, as a tool, it works best for the ending, when it's trying to wrap up the guilt and betrayal and, really, the public opinion about Robert Ford in a timely manner. But now you've got me thinking, the more I think about it, the more Robert Ford really does become the subject, or victim, of one of these stories at the end. The narrator doesn't have any sort of empathy, if I remember right, as Ford clings to this pathetic legacy of his. And it's because the narrator sort of moves with the zeitgeist of the time and not the protagonist that I find this movie so interesting. This character that we've followed and perhaps empathized with is left completely washed up, even the narrator has turned on him. Again, I may be remembering the narration completely wrong.

[children with angels]

I was suggesting more that the voiceover perhaps doesn't have authority over history - that it is spinning myths and legends in the same way as Robert's books, rather than telling us the truth. The irony therefore would lie in the disparity of meaning between the narration and the events: just small things, like the blinking thing (something that sets James apart, that would be used in his mythologising), which we don't really see much of.

I thought if this was the idea then that would be quite nice, and would somewhat excuse the excessive amount of v/o being used in place of showing and telling us things visually. But, as it is, I don't think that's how it was intended or the effect it had in the end, because we would often get images precisely detailing what the narration tells us. This all links in with what I think my basic problem with the film was - that, rather than debunk the myth of history and get to the messy authentic heart of the past, this film did feel like another work of mythologising itself. And maybe what I wanted from it was never the point, but I think it would have been a more worthwhile project (and I think it is what the film seems to tell us it's trying to do).

[Redlum]

15 minutes from the end of the film are when you think it could end and it would have been a good film, but the final 15 minutes are what makes it a great film.

I immediately want to watch it again in the hope that the ending will have some kind of retro-active effect on the experience as whole.

I liked the choice of the frame-holds; their askew composition and staging complimented the film well.
The score was beautiful and offset the matter-of-fact dialogue nicely.
Roger Deakins is a master. On a technical level 2 shots stick out to me: the head on train approach and the first-person removal of Fords wet hands from his face.

[pete]

deakins talks about shooting this and no country for old man, including the train shot.

[Redlum]

Thanks, Pete.

[Reinhold]

Spoilers throughout

i loved a lot about this film with two serious exceptions. one, really. the voice over needed to go, especially because it was so solid visually. I guess I did appreciate tidbits of the historical insight it provided, and if I had cut the film I would have used so little of it that I would have had to  scrap the little that I did like  because the remaining voice over would just end up being somewhat awkward historical interjections at odd intervals.  i felt like the narrator was an astute film student explaining the film to the audience or reading the screenplay over the film.   

it didn't piss me off until the very end, though.

the film slipped on a banana peel on the last motherfucking shot, or rather the lack there of. what the fuck was the director thinking? why was there only voice over? what the fuck? i was stunned. that line was so great-- it should have been shown. it killed the film for me. I would rather that the dvd had been irreparably damaged, causing the disc to freeze before the last few cuts. until that point, the film was a masterpiece, or at least very good in spite of the voice over. what made this last part so painful is that so much care went into the cinematography and mise en scene for the two hours and thirty-seven preceding minutes...  the very end just felt so sloppy/lazy in comparison to the rest of the film.