By Curt Schleier

There is a scene in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD where a dead body is dragged through the woods and dumped in a ditch.  Sadly it was not mine.  My fate was to sit through this two-and-a-half-hour rambling mess.

There have been published reports that this was a problem project that went through numerous editing changes and test screenings.  For the record, the reports were correct and the screenings and changes did not help.  One of the ways you can usually tell a film is in trouble if big stars wind up with seemingly minor roles.

For example, Mary-Louise Parker, who plays Jesse’s wife, Zee, is on screen for no more than four minutes.  Oscar-nominated Sam Shepard, who plays Jesse’s brother Frank, is visible less than half that.  These weren’t uncredited cameos, the kind Big Stars sometimes play in small pictures.  Both actors get top billing (and presumably pay) for roles that no doubt ended on the cutting room floor.  Almost certainly the script that they signed on for is not what you see on screen.

The film is based on a book of the same name by Ron Hansen.  It tries to explain the seemingly strange relationship between the famous outlaw and the man who shot him.  It also deconstructs the legend of Jesse James (Brad Pitt), who apparently wasn’t the Robin Hood popular mythology makes him out to be.  But the problem is it doesn’t define James or Ford (Casey Affleck) any better than the myth did.  The film lacks focus, and seems more like several movies crammed together.   It’s certainly long enough; in fact, there were a couple of times during the screening where I was convinced the film was over only for it to move forward several months or years.

Ford grew up idolizing the Jesse James he knew from the popular novels of the day, which glamorized the crook.  He approaches Jesse’s brother Frank (Sam Shepard) asking to join the gang, but Frank sees through Ford’s obsequious act and sends the persistent Ford away at gun point.  But Jesse is more susceptible to Ford’s flattery, lets him join the gang for a train robbery in Montana and then brings him home.


But James soon grows weary of him and his flattery, eventually asking “Do you want to be like me or become me?” He then sends Ford packing.
But who is this James if not Robin Hood of legend.  That’s not entirely clear.  He is always violent, certainly, but there are times he seems uncannily bright and perceptive, and others when he’s paranoid.  He badly beats up a young teenager and then cries.  Certainly it’s possible to be all of these things in real life, but this is not real life. This is the movies and here there’s not anything for viewers to grab hold of.

It’s the same thing with Ford.  At first, he’s a fawning toady full of bluster.  But his personality turns from an admirer of James to someone who resents him.  Ford also becomes a killer and is apparently one of the few people who can shoot straight, dispatching two people with just one shot each.

Why did he kill James?  Apparently he feared for his life and that of his brother.  Also, there was the incentive of considerable reward money.  But a greater lure might have been that he was tired of being a sycophant; he wanted to be a star.

“I’ve been a nobody all my life, always the baby” he says at one point.  Near the end of the film he tells his then girlfriend: “You know what I expected?  Applause.”

What happened?  My guess is that screenwriter/director Andrew Dominik finished a film that for some reason(s) didn’t suit the suits. Frankly, I don’t know who the suits are in this case.  It could have been the folks at Warner Bros. It could have been Brad Pitt whose Plan B Productions is one of the forces behind the film.  But someone was unhappy and Dominik went through 34 – that’s thirty-four edits – and five test screenings.

I happen to be of the “You pays your money and you takes your chances” school of filmmaking.  That is, you sign on with a filmmaker because you believe in him.  Then you have to trust his (or her) vision.  Certainly there are instances when a director’s ego gets in the way of a film.  But Dominik hasn’t been around long enough to be a prima donna.  And frankly whatever he turned in could not have been as bad as the film that was released.