There have always been longish films that were dumped only to be discovered years later. What better example than the silent classic by Abel Gance, Napoleon, whose triple screen threat was resized by its domestic distributor MGM to a single screen and dumped in a few theaters on its way to potential obscurity. Napoleon was subsequently restored in the late 1970s, restoring Gance’s reputation in America anyway, and even again as late as 2000 with a five-hour plus running time and with the original tinted scenes as the original Pathe release.If you claim to be a movie maven don’t wait to see The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford at some future time. At a mere 160 minutes this revisionist western runs less than half the time it took to gaze upon Napoleon.Trade press stories concentrate on how TAOJJBTCRF has been dumped by Warner Brothers in a few theaters with no promotion. Well, how many commercials have you seen for Dan in Real Life or Saw IV and how many for Jesse? The writer/director is Aussie Andrew Dominik on a sophomore outing after the astonishing (and violent) Chopper, a film that made Eric Bana a star in Australia. Perhaps ironically none of Bana’s American film work provokes the response of Chopper. Bana’s career moves aside, get ready to welcome Casey Affleck into the fold as a thesp to watch. Affleck toplines Jesse James with Brad Pitt and he displays a unique screen charisma that’s not apparent in the second banana roles he’s usually offered (think Oceans 11 and its ilk). The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford will be compared by some to films like Days of Heaven, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Wyatt Earp and even Heaven’s Gate. Yes, like those films Jesse James attempts (and succeeds) in breaking the mold, filming outside the box, but loose comparisons can also be an infirm grasping at straws. TAOJJBTCRF is a film that makes you float through idyllic imagery like you’re experience a fever dream. Surely cinematographer Roger Deakins deserves to be as household a name as Brad Pitt. The footage includes many scenes set in stark white winter. It’s one thing to create fantasy vistas with blue screen technology on a stage and it’s another kettle of fish to make a movie while you’re freezing your ass off. No amount of warm clothing takes the sting out of the kind of bitter cold on display here. It’s an apt metaphor for the soulless cruelty at times manifested by Pitt whether he’s bullying a hostage or shooting sturgeon though the ice of a frozen lake. In addition to Jesse James, Deakins has three films in current release including In the Valley of Elah and the new Coen Brothers thriller No Country For Old Men.Affleck as Robert Ford carries the film every bit as much as Pitt. Usually Pitt plays the star in films like The Mexican or Ocean’s Thirteen, but in Jesse James he plays the role with a possessed intensity that he only hinted at in Babel. Affleck at first seems to be a Boswell to James’ Johnson but as the story progresses there’s more of an Iago and Othello vibe between these two men.After James lies dead the story continues for a couple more reels as Robert Ford takes the tale to the New York stage, recreating it every night and waltzing into drunkenness and slight madness at his own temerity.The legend this film would print has James as the second most famous American of his day (after Mark Twain). Only James lives in obscurity, in a 19th century version of the witness protection program, moving at night, protected by in-laws and friends. The film itself likewise will play in obscurity and be nurtured by positive word-of-mouth with its reputation protected by cinephiles
