If the title was simply The Assassination of Jesse James, this film probably would not play out any differently than the countless portrayals of the mythical American outlaw that have come before. Yet as the title goes on to proclaim, Jesse James was killed “by the Coward Robert Ford,” which is the first indication that this film seeks to demystify the downfall of the legendary desperado.
Though director Andrew Dominik plays to the mythic air of Jesse James, he delves further to discover a contradictory man whose knack for violence, paranoid demeanor, heroic whimsy and hazy moral standing stood as a reflection of the America that was infatuated by him.
If the murderous and unpredictable Jesse James can pique your curiosity or rack your nerves, it’s because after countless portrayals he’s still a mystery, still a legend, still uncomfortably lingering in popular Western culture. He’s an unknowable being, at times volatile and ready to maim even the innocent, and at others he’s the charming and loving father of two. Queerly straddling the line between heroism and villainy, Jesse James is an ideological conflict that has always been explained away by mythology.
Brad Pitt lends his larger-than-life aura to Jesse, whose own celebrity hauled in no shortage of fans obsessed with his every move. One such fan is the titular Bob Ford, whose eerie and pathetic nature is played to perfection by Casey Affleck. Like us, Bob only knows Jesse as the legend splashed across the pages of his contemporary dime-novels. The amount of time Bob spends with the man behind the myth does nothing to enlighten him; in fact, it perplexes him.
Jesse is all legend now, consumed by his own premature myth and weary of those who wish to profit from it. He has lost touch with the man he once may have been, the one whose adventures his admirers read about. The violence is still in him but any purpose to it, assuming that it existed in the past, has been forgotten, much to the disappointment of Ford.
The only thing left to be done to this legendary figure is to drive a nail in his coffin and elevate him to martyrdom. And Ford is all too ready to be attached to such a deed—to become the man who stopped the legend—regardless of the emotional emptiness at its core.
If the literal assassination of Jesse James serves any purpose, it’s simply to feed the legend with a befitting conclusion. At the core of Dominik’s film there is no martyrdom, just the unnecessary murder of a man who murdered others. This is precisely what may perplex audiences: the lack of a grandstanding ideological purpose or meaning to this death.
If scratching too deep reveals nothing, it’s because nothing is there: the nothingness of legend, myth, and celebrity all in equal measure.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Dir. Andrew Dominik
Rating: VVVVv
