When you first see Robert Ford in this movie, he is a shuffling, little man with a ragged stove-top hat. He makes his acquaintances in a halting, shy manner with glazed eyes that shift away lazily and the smile of a simpleton. Your first reaction will be more disgust then pity. So too, is the reaction of Jesse Jame's older brother, who shoves the 19 year old away with a six shooter in the opening scenes.
The film is narrated as if from a book, with eloquence added to by a very apt musical score. Sad, foreboding fiddles provide for a tale cold and unhappy. And if I could choose three adjectives to describe the movie I would choose dream-like, tense, and sad.
It was very hard for me to find empathy with any of the characters, from the aforementioned despicable, childish Robert Ford, to Brad Pitt's Jesse James or any of the other characters. The film's most charismatic character, womanizing poet Dick Little, is little more than a footnote I felt was put in to add more color to the drab gray canvas painted by characters, narrative, and score.
Yet the slow moving, drab atmosphere created takes on a very dream-like quality that I have not witnessed in films in my recent recollection. The language, whether accurate to 1881 or not, is a dash of Southern drawal sparkled with eloquence. Even the rhubes and hillfolk that make up the James Gang speak beautifully. I had to use English subtitles often enough, despite my Southern roots (sorry, Dad).
Another aspect that adds to the dream-like feel are the shots. The camera work is absolutely brilliant and often times both ghostly and beautiful. The first train robbery comes to my mind, as well as icy fields and sepia, photograph like scenes. Some scenes the edges of the screen are blurred, and this only serves to match the hazy reality we are given.
Indeed, relationships between characters, conversations, and intentions are all very....weird. The movie gives you a world where you cannot easily trust anyone, and this must have the intention: as Jesse James himself struggles with paranoia and a prophetic vision of his eventual betrayal he cannot escape even as he lays out preemptive vengeance. Even the one true "gun battle" of the movie is unreal, with pauses in the action that seem impossible as the 2 former friends fire at each other at near point blank range.
The tension is there when Brad Pitt is there; the narrator begins the movie with the line "Rooms seemed hotter when he [Jesse] was in them...rains fell straighter...sounds were amplified. Pitt is truly an intimidating presence in the movie. The lack of trust between the members of the gang and each other, between them and Jesse, is there in nearly every single scene. Conversations are awkward, halting, and yes visibly tense. It adds to the slow pace of the movie, the intensity, the dream like nature. I could not remember dialogue and character interaction like this in other films. Ironically, these characters appear very, very realistic in their mannerisms. The acting is top notch, every conversation is perfectly imperfect, and not once did I find anything corny in the movie.
Finally, the movie ends not with a bang, but predictably like the last few drops of a sand in an hourglass. We know Jesse will be killed, and Robert Ford not glorified but made a pathetic, hated, caricature. In the end I finally learned to empathize with the sad man, who wanted something of glory alongside his boyhood hero, only to find more rejection and more reminders of his incapabilities.
Can you handle such slow paced movie style? Imagine the movie like a Sunday afternoon, lazy and drawn out, with meandering convo now and then. I liked the movie, I think it stands out. The movie as a whole is fuzzy and a bit perplexing. I do not think it gives us a very clear portrait of the famous outlaw, his men, or even of his killer. But perhaps that's the point. Legends are part truth, part rumor, and there is no such thing as ultimate truth in history. Whoever wins gets to write it, and sometimes it's not even clear who the winners are.
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