The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a 2007 American epic revisionist Western film written and directed by Andrew Dominik. Based on Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name, the film dramatizes the relationship between Jesse James and Robert Ford, focusing on the events that led up to the killing. It stars Brad Pitt as James and Casey Affleck as Ford, with Sam Shepard, Mary-Louise Parker, Paul Schneider, Jeremy Renner, Zooey Deschanel, and Sam Rockwell in supporting roles.
Photography started on August 29, 2005, and ended in December 2005. Filming took place near Calgary, Canmore, and Edmonton, Alberta, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. To achieve the visual style he wanted for the movie, Dominik took influences from many sources, including still photographers, images clipped from magazines, stills from Days of Heaven, and even Polaroids. The original edit of the movie was envisioned by Dominik to be "a dark, contemplative examination of fame and infamy", reaching more than three hours in runtime. This was opposed by the studio and the film was edited repeatedly.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford had its world premiere at the 64th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2007, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 21, 2007, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Pitt and Affleck's performances and Roger Deakins' cinematography, but was criticized for its long runtime and was a box-office bomb. At the 80th Academy Awards, it earned two nominations: Best Supporting Actor for Affleck and Best Cinematography for Deakins. Affleck was also nominated for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, while Pitt won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. It has since gained a large fan following, with many of them organizing re-releases of the film under the "Jesse James Revival" banner.
Plot In 1881, young starstruck Robert "Bob" Ford seeks out Jesse James when the James Gang is planning a train robbery in Blue Cut, Missouri, making unsuccessful attempts to join the gang with the help of his older brother Charley, already a member. The train turns out to be carrying only a fraction of the money originally thought, and a dispirited Frank James leaves the gang and his brother. Jesse returns home to Kansas City, Missouri, bringing the Fords, Dick Liddil and Jesse's cousin, Wood Hite. Jesse sends Charley, Wood, and Dick away, but insists that Bob stays for help in moving furniture to a new home in St. Joseph, Missouri. Bob becomes more admiring of Jesse before being sent away. He stays at the farmhouse of his widowed sister, Martha Bolton, where he rejoins his brother Charley, Hite, and Liddil.
Liddil reveals to Bob that he is in collusion with another member of the James gang, Jim Cummins, to capture Jesse for a substantial bounty. Meanwhile, Jesse visits another gang member, Ed Miller, who gives away information on Cummins' plot. Jesse kills Miller, then departs with Liddil to hunt down Cummins. Unable to locate him, Jesse viciously beats Albert Ford, a young cousin of Bob and Charley who had hosted him. Later, Liddil stays with Hite at Hite's father's house, where he has sex with Hite's young stepmother. Upon learning this, Hite tracks Liddil down to Bolton's and holds him at gunpoint, but Bob intervenes, fatally shooting Hite. They dump his body in the woods to conceal the murder from Jesse.
Jesse appears at the Boltons' for dinner, where the Fords deny having seen Liddil recently. At dinner, Jesse mocks Bob for his idolization of him, leading Bob to become less enchanted with and more resentful of Jesse, especially after hearing about what was done to his cousin. Jesse and Charley travel to St. Joseph where Jesse learns of Hite's disappearance, about which Charley denies knowing anything. Meanwhile, Bob goes to Kansas City Police Commissioner Henry Craig, saying he knows Jesse's whereabouts. To prove his allegiance to the James Gang, Bob assists Craig and Sheriff James Timberlake with the arrest of Dick Liddil. Following Liddil's confession to participation in numerous gang robberies, Bob brokers a deal with the Governor of Missouri, Thomas T. Crittenden. He is given ten days to capture or kill Jesse and is promised a substantial bounty and a full pardon for Hite's murder.
Charley persuades Jesse to take Bob into the gang; the brothers return to St. Joseph. Introduced as cousins to Jesse's wife and two children, they stay with the family. Jesse wants to revive his gang by committing robberies with the Fords, beginning with the Platte City bank. During their stay, Jesse becomes increasingly suspicious of the brothers, not allowing them to be alone together. However, as the stay passes uneventfully, he later gives Bob a new nickel-plated gun as a token of apology. On the morning of April 3, 1882, as Jesse and the Ford brothers prepare to depart for the robbery, Jesse learns of Liddil's arrest from a newspaper. He suddenly removes his gun belt and climbs a chair to clean a dusty picture. Bob shoots Jesse in the back of the head with the gun given to him before fleeing with Charley. They send a telegram to the governor to announce Jesse's death, for which they were to receive $10,000. However, they never receive more than $500 each.
The Fords try to capitalize on the shooting, starring in a theater show in Manhattan which sees them re-enacting Jesse's murder, but people soon gradually become hostile towards the pair, hailing Jesse as a legend and calling Bob a "coward." The shows are eventually stopped after Bob loses his temper and beats an audience member for mocking him. Guilt-stricken, Charley writes numerous letters to Zee James asking for her forgiveness but never mails any of them. He commits suicide in May 1884. Bob tries to move on with his life, becoming increasingly regretful of his past actions. On June 8, 1892, Bob is murdered by Edward O'Kelley at his saloon in Creede, Colorado. O'Kelley is sentenced to life in prison, but he is pardoned after ten years in 1902.
Cast
Ron Hansen made a cameo as a frontier reporter. The narration was provided by Hugh Ross, an assistant editor on the film. Nick Cave also appears as a folk singer in a saloon.
Production Development and casting
In March 2004, Warner Bros. Pictures and Plan B Entertainment acquired feature film rights to Ron Hansen's 1983 novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Andrew Dominik was hired to write and direct the film adaptation. Pitt was considered to portray Jesse James. The role of Ford eventually was between Affleck and Shia LaBeouf; Affleck was cast because it was felt that LaBeouf was too young. Bill Clinton's presidential campaign strategist James Carville was selected to play the Governor of Missouri. By January 2005, Pitt was cast.
Filming Filming began on August 29, 2005, in Calgary. Filming also took place in other parts of Alberta, including the McDougall Church in Morley, Alberta, McKinnon Flats, Heritage Park, the Fairmont Palliser Hotel, the Kananaskis area, several private ranches and the historical Fort Edmonton Park. The historical town of Creede, Colorado was recreated at a cost of $1 million near Goat Creek in Alberta. Filming also took place in Winnipeg in the city's historic Exchange District; the Burton Cummings Theatre (formerly known as The Walker Theatre) and the Pantages Playhouse Theatre, and concluded in December 2005.
The film was initially edited by director Dominik to be "a dark, contemplative examination of fame and infamy," similar to the style of director Terrence Malick. The studio opposed Dominik's approach, preferring less contemplation and more action. One version of the film had a running time of more than three hours. Producers Pitt and Ridley Scott and editors Dylan Tichenor and Michael Kahn collaborated to assemble and test different versions. Tichenor left the production early to cut There Will Be Blood and was replaced by editor Curtis Clayton, who ultimately finished the production. Kahn was brought in for several weeks as the studio's "go to" editor. The test versions did not receive strong scores from test audiences. Despite the negative response, the audiences considered the performances by Pitt and Affleck to be some of their careers' best. Brad Pitt had it written into his contract that the studio could not change the name of the film.
Cinematography
One of the best-known sequences of the film is the Blue Cut train robbery. This was filmed on moonless nights and cinematographer Roger Deakins used various techniques to lend the train more presence in its pitch dark setting. Dominik and Deakins agreed on a foreboding atmosphere for the scene, and lit it using only the lanterns held up by the outlaws and the 5K tungsten PAR light mounted on the front of the train, standing in for the locomotive's dim kerosene headlamp."Q&A with Roger Deakins" , AC Magazine, October 2007 The PAR light was controlled by a dimmer, allowing it to illuminate the scene at full intensity as the train comes around a curve and into view and then progressively dimmed down so as not to flare the lens as it came closer to the camera. A series of dimmed 500-watt tungsten bulbs were also attached beneath and between the front wheels to enhance the glow from the engine's firebox. In order to deepen the blacks in this scene, Deakins ordered a slight bleach bypass on the negative along with subtle digital manipulation of shadows in the DI.
Deakinizers Some scenes are notable for unusual lens choice. These passages display soft focus at the corners of the frame, along with color diffraction and various levels of vignetting. During pre-production Dominik had shown Deakins photographs taken with Petzval portrait lenses from the 1800s and asked if a similar look could be achieved on film.
In 1981 Deakins had shot a film called Towers of Babel, a Jonathan Lewis black comedy about council flats in London. The script called for POV shots as if through an apartment door's peephole. Deakins simulated the ultra-wide perspective by holding a bare lens element in front of a conventional 50mm lens through which a 35mm camera was shooting.
On Jesse James the effect Dominik had in mind was eventually achieved with a set of custom lenses designed by Deakins, Dan Lopez and Steve Hamerski of the Otto Nemenz rental house. Recalling his work on Towers of Babel Deakins had managed to reproduce many of the aberrations characteristic of the Petzval lenses by holding a bare lens element in front of a standard 50mm cine lens. He arrived at Nemenz, demonstrated this effect to Lopez and Hamerski, and asked whether Nemenz could supply a selection of lenses that produced a similarly primitive look.
The first lens created for this purpose was a wide-angle Kinoptic with one lens element removed. This had the effect of de-engineering some of the correction built into the lens. Deakins was so impressed with the result that he ordered a range of focal lengths from Nemenz. This kit was produced with four Arri Macro prime lenses modified to hold various single lens elements. Deakins recalls that,
The studio reportedly hated these lenses, and pressured Dominik to eliminate their use. Both Deakins and Dominik eventually regretted their limited deployment and wished they had used them to shoot more of the film.
Nemenz kept the four lenses it modified to shoot the film and was surprised to find them the subject of frequent rental requests. The set has come to be called the "Deakinizers", although Roger Deakins denies having coined the term. This table lists the lenses modified by Otto Nemenz. With the exception of the first, all Deakinizers are single element attachments that can be paired to any of the following Arri and Zeiss lenses:
Table of Deakinizers