The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford

Halfway through The Assassination of Jesse James I realized that this is perhaps the first time am watching a film containing 10 words in its title. That indeed is unusual. With that add a running time of almost three hours, a plot more or less known to every American teenager (Jesse James tales are famous for their notorious descriptions of impossible heists and hence are favorites) and a genre under which a minimum of 200 films have been directed previously (ya rightly guessed,its is a Western). While the title and the running time are enough to disinterest people, the rave reviews the film got from the press and notable critics have saved it from being unnoticed commercially. While browsing through the reviews the common criticism the film faced was regarding its slow pacing, lack of interesting sequences and the director trying to complicate a simple plot by giving secondary characters unnecessary importance. Before jumping to conclusions and agreeing with the critics one must make sure what the director's intention was when he started this project. Now Westerns have been associated with action,violence,expletives not to mention lavish horse riding sequences. I doubt Sergio Leone's much acclaimed Dollars Trilogy has much of a plot to talk about. Rather what makes the trilogy an all time favorite are the technical mastery of the director, Clint Eastwood's godly portrayal of an unnamed anti-hero and some over the top hero favouring action sequences. The Assassination of Jesse James clearly does not have the latter two and hence was dismissed by Western fans at the time of its release. And its not entirely untrue that The Assassination of Jesse James has hardly anything in common with the traditional westerns we have seen for so many years. What is has instead is extremely matured character development, some seriously tense sequences and honest,true portrayal of the characters by all the actors in the film. Performance wise its something which will mesmerize you as an audience. The reason why the film amazed me and impressed me was the matured handling of the subject and the director not giving in to the demands of the setting and turning it into just another shoot em up, cowboy flick. The director within the first 10 minutes made it clear what he intended to show us. The relationship between Jesse and Robert is not a smooth one. Fluctuating between admiration,adoration to jealousy and the urge to kill your mentor the complications which accompany Jesse and Robert's tumultuous relationship is brilliantly filmed with both Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck (his brother should take acting lessons from him) doing justice to the roles of Jesse James and Robert Ford respectively. The viewer can feel an air of tension hanging whenever the two meet. Steely eyes accompanied with a cold,mutual respect for each other makes every frame of meeting between Jesse and Robert tense and dark. It seems as if Jesse knew the consequences of recruiting Robert as a member of his gang. The setting becomes secondary, rather unimportant. It becomes the tale of two human beings, both outlaws, both fighting for survival as well as their urge to confront each other simply because of the lack of knowledge they possess about each other or the excess of it.

Traditionally Westerns are prone to treat character and story development as secondary. Since Westerns have been filmed since the 1930s and were the most successful film genre till the mid 1950s directors seldom tamper with what the audiences love to think whenever they watch a Western. Clint Eastwood's 1992 directorial venture Unforgiven was one of those few films which despite being set during the American Civil War era featured only manic action scenes involving rowdy,rugged cowboys and helpless women who seemed to be more helpless whenever they sighted a man on horseback. Unforgiven was the first film to have a very well executed plot involving the morality of an outlaw and the reason why killing a fellow human being is not as easy as it seems. Similar shades of storytelling involving a Western setting but a much more complicated story than expected is found in John Hillcoat's 2005 feature film The Proposition. Brutal and violent yet featuring characters who are forced to compromise with their moral stands and take harsh, difficult decisions involving their loved ones, this is one Western way different from the traditional ones. These films have always been overshadowed by popular and better known Western films such as The Searchers,The Dollars Trilogy,Once upon a Time in the West and many others. The above mentioned films are no doubt works of talented directors and are technically top notch. But films such as The Assassination of Jesse James, Unforgiven, The Proposition, Appaloosa (a 2008 film following a similar approach of filmmaking) should also be given their due recognition. Just because films preceding them (and having a similar setting) were made in a traditional way and people have labelled that very way of filmmaking as a genre does not mean these films are anyway inferior to those. Defying conventions and yet being able to give us very meaningful and brilliantly crafted piece of cinema is what directors such as John Hillcoat, Andrew Dominik and others have done and cine viewers are and will be grateful for that. Films like these should be appreciated,applauded and loved. I guess this should be enough for now. The Book Fair trip has tired me physically. In desperate need of some rest. Goodnight. Cheers :D