If you missed The Assassination of Jesse James (etc etc) on its cinema release go stand in the corner and think about what you've done. Though to be fair, there might be a lot of people in your camp. It seems there's only enough light to shine on a small number of films in the awards season, and some classics get left in the dark. Jesse James seemed to be the three legged dog that nobody wanted this year but it's hard to fathom why.
It's out on DVD this week. It's long but it's well worth your time and effort. Andrew Dominik cut his teeth dealing with a celebrity criminal in his debut film Chopper. With this, he set out to make a 'Victorian Western' about another celebrity criminal. So we have a Western that doesn't completely look like a Western. A film about a criminal that isn't really about the criminal, and a film about about celebrity that doesn't have a celebrity in sight - at least not in the terms we understand today. This is a revisionist Western that sees Brad Pitt play Jesse James as an unsettled, paranoid loner who will stop at nothing to protect his interests, rather than the mythic hero of folklore. The film is really about his assassin Robert Ford. It's about what some people will do to be the moth that hovers around the flame of fame and to go down in history with a legacy. It's about people's innate desire to narrativise, and mythologise their lives and the lives of others. It seemed no matter how hard Robert Ford tried, history would not treat him kindly. Casey Affleck is note-perfect in the role and in any other year (i.e. a year when Javier Bardem wasn't hoovering up awards) Affleck would have won an Oscar. Still, this could see him join his brother on the A-list.
The film is not perfect, it's slow, and the narrative is a little muddled in places but it demands work from audiences and duly rewards their patience. The cinematography from Roger Deakins is even better than his work on No Country For Old Men (but again, that film took the Oscar) The use of a narrator works perfectly, making it all feel like what it is, a story. A specific treatment of history. And that's exactly the point. The pacing is appropriate if demanding, making it feel like one of the classic narratively ambiguous and flawed masterpieces of the 70's such as Apocalypse Now, the Deer Hunter or to a lesser extent even McCabe and Mrs Miller.
It was a strange year in which There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men staked their claims as modern Westerns and modern classics. Perhaps it would have just looked weird to have 3 out of the 5 nominated films of the year fitting this mould (they even felt like they were working off the same colour palette!). Still, it would be interesting to see how Jesse James fares against the likes of Michael Clayton and Atonement over the next 20 years. Classics stand the test of time whether they win awards or not. Citizen Kane never won an Oscar. How Green Was My Something or other did...Exactly.*
(*Editors Note: We know How Green Was My Valley was actually a really good John Ford Movie but still...it's Citizen fuckin Kane!.)
