The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
No review of the film is complete without a dismissive reference to the length of the title — preferably one sighing about how it reflects the film’s overlong running time — but I actually like how long the title is; it fits the material. I don’t envy the dudes who had to get up on the old-school cinema signboards and try to cram it in there, mind you (to all those ladies and gentlemen of movieplex employment who may have rendered it “The Ass. Of Jesse James,” I salute you), but it’s how things got titled back then. Even a garden-variety mid-season baseball game — pardon me, “base-ball match” — from the turn of the last century, meaningless in the standings, unexceptional in the details, often got saddled with a series of rococo subheds silk-pursing the sow’s ear of your average 3-1 box score with absinthe-y nonsense like “Lajoie Addresses Dish, But Must Go Hungry — Angry Zephyr Of Waddell Fast-Ball Makes Windy Contrast To Stony Silence Of Injun Bats — Sunny Day Darkened By Inexcusable Error On Routine Play By The Man Currently Defending Short-Stop Territory Against All Comers, Herein Described In Pitiless Detail By Way Of Norse Mythology’s Most Violent Chapter.”
But that was the era; they had to sell papers, and in the cases of both Wild-West tales and baseball, they had to gin it up with literary allusions so that educated or higher-class people could feel okay about consuming it. The divide between the dime-novel Jesse James and the real one is made nearly explicit in Assassination, so I think the title does its job; my problem is that, whenever I say it aloud, I keep messing up and saying “Richard Ford” — so our anti-hero isn’t shot in the head, but rather frustrated to death by Updike-lite prose stylings. (This of course led to an extended back-and-forth with Skyrockets about various sequels — The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Henry Ford, in which James is run down by a Model A, the be-road-goggled father of the automobile grimly gripping the wheel…The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Gerald Ford, James tumbles down a short flight of steps…you get the idea.)
The movie itself, I enjoyed. Good performances, good pacing — I suspect that the length of the denouement is something people may have objected to, but while I do think the movie is too long, I wouldn’t pare any time from the story post-James’s death. It’s prior to it that the scenes tend to go on too long and repeat themselves: James gets suspicious, visits a friend to gauge his loyalty, toys with the man a while prior to shooting him, lather rinse repeat. The problem here is that the audience may start to wonder 1) why James doesn’t just kill them right up front, if that’s how it’s always going to end (and if his apparent reason for wanting them dead is not angry caprice, but fear of exposure); and 2) why they don’t in turn just kill James, who is clearly dangerous and an asshole to boot. Of course this can’t happen in the film, primarily because this didn’t happen, and I think we’re meant to understand that James has an emotional power over, and for, these guys, as he had over the nation at the time (and still does, culturally). But when scenes in which James acts like your shitbird boss go on longer than they should, the intended effect — as above, to distinguish between Jesse James and Jesse James™ — is lost.
Still, credit to Brad Pitt, who may not have gotten enough recognition for his work here given the baggage it (and he, tabloid-wise, at this point) comes with — it’s his portrayal of James’s arrogance and volatility that raises this issue, really, which isn’t a bad problem to have. Ditto Rockwell as Charley, and Sam Shepard, whose short turn as Frank James at the movie’s beginning is probably what got me on the story’s side. Shepard’s acting is pretty limited unless he’s cast correctly, and he’s perfect here. And Affleck is fantastic, but I’ve always liked that guy; the entertainment’s press’s “discovery” of him in the last year is funny to me. I’ve loved the guy since Good Will Hunting and Desert Blue.
Tags: movies
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Whitey Ford, in which James is struck down by a fastball clandestinely scuffed by a wedding ring.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
As a child, I listened to cartloads of Elton John. So with that adolescent imprinting, there is no way I could ever be confused about which Ford did Jesse in:
And I feel like a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford
I’m low as a paid assassin is
You know I’m cold as a hired sword
I’m so ashamed can’t we patch it up
You know I can’t think straight no more
You make me feel like a bullet honey in the gun of Robert Ford
That’s one mangled metaphor right there. God Bless Bernie Taupin.
Still, picturing Edsel Ford humiliating himself enough that Jesse buys the farm cannot be gainsaid.
WHITEY! We didn’t think of that one; I’m ashamed.
We could go on and on like this, though, depending on how strict you want to be about keeping “Ford” in the title. The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Jack Lord is probably my favorite so far. Book him, Danno! Murder one!
How about “The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Lita Ford ” where Jesse goes to a bordello and dies by poison lipstick…..
LITA!
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Harrison Ford. Using a giant boulder.
The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Ford Prefect. Using a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster.
And now I’m ashamed.
“The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Ford Prefect,” in which Jesse is smothered by an unwashed towel.
and
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward James ‘Sawyer’ Ford.”
Jesse dies of overexposure to the sexy.
K, I’m stopping now.
The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward John Ford. In which James is shot during the shooting of a western? This one may need some work.
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Francis Ford Coppola, in which James has a heart attack while shooting an over-budget movie everyone assumes is going to be a disaster.
Can’t….stop….laughing…..
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Ford Modeling Agency, in which James is spiked to death by high-heeled supermodels.
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Ford Pinto, in which the horse on which James is riding bursts into flames.
Please stop! My nose and eyes are runny and the guy in the office next door probably thinks there’s something wrong with me, from all the strangled wheezing.
BTW, Ford models, or models ford, had sprung to mind….
The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Ford Pinto, in which James is rear ended and his gas tank explodes. Okay, I’ll stop now.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Ford Pinto, in which James is blown up in a fiery car crash while Ford executives calculate how much money they will need to settle with the rest of the gang.
The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Frost, in which two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and Jesse James took the one less traveled by and was killed. And that made all the difference.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Betty Ford, in which James dies from the shame of being in rehab at the same time as Britney.
I wanted to say something about Betty Ford but – not a coward, and probably in poor taste. So I won’t. But damn, you all are funny!
“The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward John Ford” sounds like a Charlie Kaufman project.
From The People Who Brought You The Devil Wears Prada! The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Eileen Ford: Worse Go-See EVER!
The Assassination of Jesse James By The President Gerald Ford, in which he is pardoned, then killed by a stray golf ball.
@Amanda C – Awesome! So funny.
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Ford Fairlane, in which Andrew Dice Clay ends the outlaw’s life with a bomb.
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Ford C. Frick, who shot James and then put an asterisk on the body.
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Reed, who refused to appear in the final moments of James’s life because he felt it was beneath his dignity.
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Random Fjord, wherein James freezes to death in some God forsaken Scandinavian inlet.
Oh, Sandman, your version of “Ford Prefect” is MUCH better. I salute you.
Jesse James in: The Spy Who Assassinated Me, Featuring The Coward Roger Moore
Working title: “Octojesse.”
Octojesse. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Damn, these are good. I’m not fast enough to think up a good one (Pan-Galactic Gargle-blaster) but I’m having a good time reading everyone’s brilliant titles.
Waaaah! Brickton beat me to the fjord joke.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Tord Boontje, in which James in strangled by a “Garland” light. But doesn’t he look pretty?
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Redford, in which James is Sundanced to death.
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Roberta Flack, who blew up his skull with a high note.
Okay, I peaked early on this exercise, but I couldn’t resist.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Cowards at Ford’s Theatre, in which Jesse and Abe go to see a show. . .
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Glenn Ford, as the climax of a homoerotic love triangle featuring Rita Hayworth.
Also, there was the Attempted Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Bork, but that was foiled in Senate hearings.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert RedFord, in which Jesse is buried somewhere on a 5000-acre stretch of land in Utah by a man who loves landscapes.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Tennesee Ernie Ford, who twanged poor Jesse to death.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Ford Madox Ford, in which Jesse has a fatal encounter with modernism.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Sela Ward, in which everyone identifies the killer by her fabulous ball gown and surprisingly youthful skin.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Stafford Loan, in which Jesse is given a six month grace period before his death.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Jasper Fforde, in which Jesse is struck down by literary satire and metafiction.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Palmer, in which Jesse James is killed by identical women weilding tubes of red lipstick.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Montgomery Ward, in which James is crushed by a falling catalog.
@ Jessica: I was trying to think of a good one using Glenn Ford and “Gilda.” I like yours. :)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Joan Crawford, in which Jesse is beaten to death with a clothes hanger.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Billy “Ford” Fordham, in which Jesse is locked in a warehouse full of vampires.
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Goulet…who is then assassinated by Elvis Presley.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert’s Rules of Order, which is not actually allowed to be called a coward because it’s not parliamentary procedure.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Fordham University, in which Jesse dies of a Jesuit education.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Blake, whose lawyer gets him off.