"Guess I'll sell shoes" Assassination of Jesse James

POSTED BY: wytchcroft
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 23:41
VIEWED: 1711
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WYTCHCROFT

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 11:24 PM

Ok, so I borrowed The Banquet from the Library on Dvd – opened the box, put it in the player and – oops! They made a mistake and I got The Assassination of Jesse James by the outlaw Robert Ford!

Never seen it before (though I meant to) and – wow!...
What a movie – a real experience!

I dunno if it’s popular here or not – I’d be interested to know…

And I don’t how accurate the film is historically – it’s been sometime since I read up on jesse, I could easily be confusing him with billy the kid in my mind, but I’ll go away and find out more.

I thought it was a great film (unlike some other famous recent ‘western’ films)
Brave not to make Jesse more likeable – though quite why Frank was sundered from him is unclear to me.

I thought the film sort of took off from the character in Unforgiven (which it also resembles structurally) who follows English Bob around.

A lot of influences in the mix – I like the ‘european’ pacing and (AMAZING) photography – the scene with the snake seems to nod to Lacombe Lucien by Louis Malle.
But I also thought it owed a debt to Pat Garret and Billy the Kid by Peckinpah (the first director to get Peckerwood in a movie).

I liked how early on Bob Ford’s character resembles Alias from that film, especially the tilting eye and the bluffed ‘oh yeahs’ and ‘maybes’ – but he turns into a kind of Mark Chapman.
Eerie when Casey Affleck looks so much like George Harrison later on!

The early ‘wanna be’ approach that Bob adopts made me wonder if a similar situation could develop for Mal – maybe if he had taken on the man running from the Reavers on Lilac… hmmm – it could make a fic if any BSR folks are interested!?

The film seems uncertain just how much of a southern ‘rebel’ he was. And I wish I knew more… but the Civil War seems to lurk only in the background. There was a fine article in Finding Serenity about how the Civil War and its ‘truths’ are barely seen on screen.

As you can tell – it’s made my brain dilate – always a good sign a movie does that!

ECGORDON

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 11:41 PM

I did enjoy the movie, even though the slow pace made it seem twice as long as it actually was. I also don't know how accurate it was (will we ever really know?), but I think I prefer Walter Hill's The Long Riders.