Fame—I’m Gonna Live Forever (“The Assassination of Jesse James . . . “)

The Western has never been my favorite film genre. Personally speaking, I‘m not much enthralled by horses and guns. But when one of my screenwriting students (someone whose tastes run from science-fiction to Pixar) called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford his number-one film of all time, my curiosity was roused.

 What I discovered is that this 2007 film, written and directed by an Aussie named Andrew Dominik, has not had an easy history. After first, things seemed to be going well.  Based on a 1973 novel,  the project attracted the attention of Brad Pitt, who served as a producer along with Ridley Scott and others, while also taking on the Jesse James part.. Casey Affleck was cast in the essential role of Robert Ford, known to history as James’ killer. Others in the cast included the noted character actors Sam Rockwell, Sam Shepard, and Jeremy Renner, along with Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel.  (Fun fact: political maven James Carville is briefly visible as the Governor of Missouri.)  The great Roger Deakins worked his magic as the film’s cinematographer, making the wintery Old West (played in the movie by the Canadian outback) look gorgeous indeed, while evoking a grim sense of foreboding. 

 But the money men in Hollywood wanted a film with less brooding and more action; they were not about to accept a director’s cut that lasted more than three hours. When the film finally surfaced, critics were impressed, but audiences were largely not. Though there were Oscar nominations for Affleck’s performance and Deakins’ camera work, the movie was a bomb at the box office.

 I’m not sure how the DVD I watched compares to the theatrical version. Yes, the film is long (160 minutes) and it’s sometimes hard to keep track of all the complex relationships within Jesse James’ criminal band, but I was never in the least bored. One of the film’s glories is its complex characterizations, exploring men who are both violent and gentle, cocky and self-loathing, greedy and generous. The focus is on the period in which James is a national figure known for daring exploits that include train robbery and lots of killings. At times he seems a happy man, enjoying a loving family and the adulation of young admirers. Elsewhere, he appears to be restless and almost suicidal. As for the nineteen-year-old Robert (“Bob”) Ford, he is awed by James’ exploits and thrilled by the opportunity to be part of the gang surrounding his hero. That is, until he decides, for several complex reasons, to kill the great man. (Ford’s emotional state can’t help reminding me of Mark David Chapman, whose hero-worship of John Lennon led to Lennon’s shocking 1980 murder.) 

 In the film, the killing of Jesse James itself sparked all sort of questions in me. Ford’s actions are ambiguous enough that it’s not even entirely clear that he’s the successful shooter. (I watched that scene twice, and I’m still not sure exactly what happened.)  What is definitely clear is that even in death Jesse James had far more power than Robert Ford. His dead body was photographed, and copies sold to eager purchasers all over the country. After which, on a bed of ice, his corpse was shipped out for public display to a fascinated (and ticket-buying) public. Meanwhile, looking for their own slice of the pie, Bob Ford and older brother Charles (Rockwell) booked themselves into theatres where they clumsily re-enacted the shooting, in front of audiences that refused to be impressed. Both brothers ultimately reached bad ends, drawing no attention whatever from the fickle public.  

 

1917: Mettle, Medals, and Awards

War, as we know, is hell. Still, a war movie is a helluva good way to get awards attention. A war film, by its very nature, deals with a serious subject on a huge canvas. It encourages technical virtuosity along with action, suspense, and an epic sweep. And it’s an overwhelmingly male genre, as compared to, say, Little Women. It may certainly not be coincidence that Kathryn Bigelow, the one female director ever honored by the Academy with an Oscar (for 2008’s The Hurt Locker) was recognized for an Iraq-era war film featuring a virtually all-male cast.

Some war films are rollicking (The Dirty Dozen), some are existentially grim (Platoon and The Deer Hunter), and some are jingoistic, designed to arouse our patriotic enthusiasm (John Wayne’s The Green Beret, but also Dunkirk, which reminds us of the savvy heroics of World War II). Some of the very strongest, like Paths of Glory and All Quiet on the Western Front, use the battlefields of World War I to show us that war should never be glorified, that it brings out not the best but the worst in men.

I’m not what you’d call a fan of the war film genre, but I have to admit that Sam Mendes’1917 blew me away. This film is  technically bravura in its use of the camera to involve us in the action: famously, cinematographer Roger Deakins and crew give the illusion of a single take that closely follows two British doughboys through the French countryside on their way to deliver a message on which lives depend. These young leading men are heroic, but not in the way of Gary Cooper’s Sergeant York, who is ace rifleman as well as a saintly savior of his fellow GI’s. Instead Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield are skillfully depicted as average chaps who must rise to the challenge of what is required to them, despite the long odds that they’ll succeed.

It’s a pleasure, of sorts, not to be bogged down in a convoluted plot, involving tricky deviations from the ongoing story. Instead 1917 is a single slog across a no man’s land riddled with pitfalls and pockmarked with corpses of animals and human beings. Which is not to say the film lacks excitement. There are dangers at every turn, and their outcome can not always be predicted. The one-take illusion keeps us breathtakingly close to what’s going on: I have never felt so clearly that I knew what trench warfare was about. But for all the movie’s basic allegiance to reality, it makes room for a surrealistic note. Late in the film, as bodies and minds become battered, there’s an eerie night sequence in the ruins of a devastated town, followed by an ominous incorporating of the plaintive old folk ballad “Poor Wayfaring Stranger.” (This is a purely American song in its origins, so its appearance among a troop of British soldiers seems unlikely—but it beautifully fits the mood Mendes has set.)

Does 1917 have what it takes to nab the Oscar for best picture? Its surprise win at the Golden Globes sent shock waves through the industry, but upon reflection I think this may be the film to beat. I’m no fan of Scorsese’s The Irishman; the powerful but intimate Marriage Story seems to be fading from consideration; and Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood  is perhaps too whimsical a treatment of a real-life tragedy to take the top prize. And 1917 has the key virtue of  being made by an actual movie studio, not a streaming service. Enough said.

 This post was written before the nominations were announced. I haven’t seen Joker, but I suspect it would not make me change my mind.