rating: ****
the story: A former TV star's bid for career resurrection intertwines with the life of Sharon Tate.
review: A week after seeing it I'm still processing Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Sometimes I'm instantly in love with a Quentin Tarantino film (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), other times I'm not sure how devoted I'll be (Jackie Brown, Hateful Eight, even Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs). The two-volume Kill Bill is sort of in-between, although the second one is closer to instant love.
But of all his movies, Once Upon...is probably closest to Jackie Brown, which was Tarantino's first taste of languid, of just letting his filmmaking speak for itself rather than splashy violence (Reservoir Dogs) or splashy stars (Pulp Fiction) do the talking (along with the characters, naturally). Once Upon takes its tone from Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate, who today is best known for being horribly murdered at the behest of Charles Manson. Tarantino has stated that he wanted Tate to exist apart from that narrative. In fact, Once Upon... becomes his second film, after Inglourious Basterds, to deliberately rewrite history, in allowing Tate to avoid her fate, and it's in that regard that the film reaches its highest note and possibly the note on which the entire movie will ultimately be judged.
But Robbie's Tate isn't really the star of the movie. That honor falls to Leonardo DiCaprio, who's featured as the former TV star, a fictional character, who has been struggling to find meaningful roles. His TV show was a western, and by the time we catch up with him he's being cast in his latest guest spot in another one, and as Tarantino presents it the material becomes a movie-within-a-movie, something I wish he'd done with Django Unchained (as a flashback-of-sorts for the Brunhilda myth), which for some viewers might be a needless tangent, but it helps put the character in context, how he views himself, and thus how everything would turn out for all the characters if we followed their narratives equally. Metaphorically, you understand.
Just below DiCaprio is Brad Pitt playing his former stunt double, now personal assistant. After, oh, about a decade of sliding toward irrelevance and being best known for his relationship with Angelina Jolie, Pitt's performance in Once Upon... is almost akin to Travolta in Pulp Fiction, a giant reminder of his considerable talents, the full impact of his charismatic screen presence. He's got the best scene, too, a fight with Bruce Lee that becomes better as it builds, which is interesting for Tarantino, who usually accomplishes the bulk of his work with words. It's another subtle evolution of his filmmaking mastery.
Among the supporting players are Al Pacino (allowing himself a rare character role), Bruce Dern, and Kurt Russell, who's probably in the best sweet spot of his career (previewed, in some ways, by Death Proof, with a great spotlight in Hateful Eight).
But the ending is the real selling point. As I said, Tarantino allows Sharon Tate to cheat fate. In doing so, he probably allows Tate's husband, at the time of her death, Roman Polanski a reboot as well. Polanski at one time was known simply as a brilliant director. He was just coming off his breakthrough film, Rosemary's Baby, at the time, and would later direct Chinatown and The Pianist, but his career was forever tarnished by a rape charge he chose exile from America to avoid prosecution over. Is it reasonable to assume Tate's death played a role in the sequence of events that led to this fate? Is Tarantino saving two lives here? That's how I choose to view it, anyway.
Giving Tate the focus, rather than Charles Manson, is itself a noteworthy choice on Tarantino's part. It takes the power away from Manson, who entered virtual cultural immortality as the result of ordering Tate's murder, and Tate herself became just a name. In effect, Tarantino is addressing two major sins, and offering a chance at correction, that've haunted Hollywood for fifty years, which is noteworthy in and of itself at a time when Hollywood has been playing a moral authority. Is it a direct criticism? Will Hollywood even care, come the Oscars next year, or merely be flattered, as it tends to be, when presented as subject matter? If it gives Tarantino his long-deserved Academy recognition, all the better.
Perhaps, in time, I'll better understand how much I appreciate this one. For now I'll be a little cautious. But like all Tarantino's movies, it won't be easy to forget. Not by a long shot. Yeah....
Showing posts with label Brad Pitt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brad Pitt. Show all posts
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Moneyball (2011)
rating: ****
the story: Billy Beane starts a revolution in baseball by putting the hard focus on stats.
the review: I was always going to watch Moneyball, but I also put it off for years. The reason for both is the same, and that's Brad Pitt. Pitt's one of the best actors working today, but his best work is retreating into the past, and I always thought Moneyball was the start of that. I mean, what does Moneyball have to say about his talent, his unique charisma? It's a movie about baseball stats!
As it turns out, plenty. It's one of those quintessential Pitt roles. It's a lot like his Jesse James (as in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, one of my all-time favorites). In fact, that's the best reason to watch it. I've got and will go into plenty of others, too, but that's the main reason, and it's the big thrust of the movie itself. It conforms real history into a showcase performance. You can't appreciate the art of filmmaking if you watch a movie like Moneyball and don't understand that. I'm not talking "showcase performance" in that Pitt makes it flashy, but that it's a role that boils down the essence of a Brad Pitt performance and gives it another context. That's a movie star. And maybe that's why Pitt doesn't get a lot of great roles these days, because the focus had shifted far away from movie stars and onto blockbuster franchises (actual and would-be). So far the closest Pitt's come to work like that is the unexpected success of World War Z (which I also got around to watching recently, and enjoyed to a lesser extent).
Billy Beane was the general manager of the Oakland Athletics during the 2002 season the movie covers. The A's were struggling to recover from the loss of three key players from a great 2001 campaign, mostly because of, well, money. In fact, Moneyball is less about baseball than it is about money. It's a Great Recession movie. It's about a small market team struggling to remain competitive against big market teams. The movie uses a graphic that explains the huge disparity between the payroll of the A's and the most successful franchise in MLB history, the New York Yankees. Basically it's about the haves and the have-nots, the 1% and the lower class. (It may be worth remembering that although athletes are paid handsomely today, more in some sports than others, and more with greater visibility, they used to do this as a side hobby back in the day, as in, for no pay. Jim Thorpe got screwed out of Olympic glory because he played baseball for money, but these guys used to struggle on this life. In other words, this isn't to note the irony of people playing baseball complaining about money. Relatively speaking, Moneyball is talking about all the players making minimum wage.)
Moneyball, in effect, is the predecessor of later movies like The Big Short (2015). In that sense it's also relevant to speak of co-writer Aaron Sorkin's involvement. It may not be known as an Aaron Sorkin project, but it's got Sorkin all over it. Above all else, Sorkin is always interested in trying to riddle out why something's happened. That's The West Wing, trying to figure out why politics remained popular despite how divisive they had become and were going to remain long after the TV series ended. That's The Social Network, trying to figure out how Facebook became so big despite its humbling origins. That's Jobs, trying to explain the rise of new technology against a backdrop of a classic cult of personality. That's even Molly's Game, trying to explain gambling being as relevant as ever. And that's Moneyball, trying to explain how the Great Recession wasn't going to change anything. The story ends with Beane failing to achieve his goal of leveling the playing field. Red Sox fans know another big market team used his tactics to succeed, and now everyone uses them, and so small market teams like the A's are right back where they started. Like any attempt to fix the economy so it works for everyone, apparently.
But you needn't worry about politics or economics to enjoy Moneyball. Like all great movies, you've got a great cast, one that continually rewards you. You've got the always-underrated Robin Wright there in another thankless supporting role. You've got Philip Seymour Hoffman in his classic Patch Adams mode, the mainstream naysayer standing in Beane's way as A's manager. You've got Jonah Hill reinventing his career as a dramatic actor, inspiring and encouraging Beane to look beyond the standard. And you've got...Chris Pratt?
In 2011, Pratt was two years into his career-making turn in the sitcom Parks & Recreation, three away from his breakout role in Guardians of the Galaxy. In Moneyball he plays one of three key small-salary players Beane scoops up to replace superstars. I can't be sure that this isn't hindsight speaking, but he easily stands out from the pack, acting-wise, and even in a small role stands out in the film, without hamming it up, as he does in Guardians. (In Parks he was cast in the John Krasinski Office role, and not unsurprisingly both have since taken the classic lovable everyman role to cinematic success.) Anyway, it's clear he stands out, that he's destined for greater things, and so it's a fun way to experience Pratt before he hit big. For all I know, Moneyball played a role in helping him get there.
As a lifelong fan of the A's, I always wanted to see the movie just on that front alone, and I wanted to know whether it acknowledged Beane's legacy with the 2004 Red Sox win in the World Series, and whether or not it referenced the "Greek God of Walks," Kevin Youkilis (items two and three? check and check). (Of course Beane usurper Theo Epstein, who helped engineer Boston's 2004 curse reversal, did it again with the Cubs after the film was released.)
The film puts a hard focus on some things and a soft one on others. It glosses over the ace pitching staff the A's had that season, all of whom were later poached (I've long called the A's the farm system of the rest of the league, which made it funny when Beane laments the same thing in the movie) by other teams. Clearly it has a narrative it wants to tell. I'm not going to quibble over stuff like that. As I said, it's really an excuse to let Pitt be Brad Pitt. I'll take that. Yeah...
the story: Billy Beane starts a revolution in baseball by putting the hard focus on stats.
the review: I was always going to watch Moneyball, but I also put it off for years. The reason for both is the same, and that's Brad Pitt. Pitt's one of the best actors working today, but his best work is retreating into the past, and I always thought Moneyball was the start of that. I mean, what does Moneyball have to say about his talent, his unique charisma? It's a movie about baseball stats!
As it turns out, plenty. It's one of those quintessential Pitt roles. It's a lot like his Jesse James (as in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, one of my all-time favorites). In fact, that's the best reason to watch it. I've got and will go into plenty of others, too, but that's the main reason, and it's the big thrust of the movie itself. It conforms real history into a showcase performance. You can't appreciate the art of filmmaking if you watch a movie like Moneyball and don't understand that. I'm not talking "showcase performance" in that Pitt makes it flashy, but that it's a role that boils down the essence of a Brad Pitt performance and gives it another context. That's a movie star. And maybe that's why Pitt doesn't get a lot of great roles these days, because the focus had shifted far away from movie stars and onto blockbuster franchises (actual and would-be). So far the closest Pitt's come to work like that is the unexpected success of World War Z (which I also got around to watching recently, and enjoyed to a lesser extent).
Billy Beane was the general manager of the Oakland Athletics during the 2002 season the movie covers. The A's were struggling to recover from the loss of three key players from a great 2001 campaign, mostly because of, well, money. In fact, Moneyball is less about baseball than it is about money. It's a Great Recession movie. It's about a small market team struggling to remain competitive against big market teams. The movie uses a graphic that explains the huge disparity between the payroll of the A's and the most successful franchise in MLB history, the New York Yankees. Basically it's about the haves and the have-nots, the 1% and the lower class. (It may be worth remembering that although athletes are paid handsomely today, more in some sports than others, and more with greater visibility, they used to do this as a side hobby back in the day, as in, for no pay. Jim Thorpe got screwed out of Olympic glory because he played baseball for money, but these guys used to struggle on this life. In other words, this isn't to note the irony of people playing baseball complaining about money. Relatively speaking, Moneyball is talking about all the players making minimum wage.)
Moneyball, in effect, is the predecessor of later movies like The Big Short (2015). In that sense it's also relevant to speak of co-writer Aaron Sorkin's involvement. It may not be known as an Aaron Sorkin project, but it's got Sorkin all over it. Above all else, Sorkin is always interested in trying to riddle out why something's happened. That's The West Wing, trying to figure out why politics remained popular despite how divisive they had become and were going to remain long after the TV series ended. That's The Social Network, trying to figure out how Facebook became so big despite its humbling origins. That's Jobs, trying to explain the rise of new technology against a backdrop of a classic cult of personality. That's even Molly's Game, trying to explain gambling being as relevant as ever. And that's Moneyball, trying to explain how the Great Recession wasn't going to change anything. The story ends with Beane failing to achieve his goal of leveling the playing field. Red Sox fans know another big market team used his tactics to succeed, and now everyone uses them, and so small market teams like the A's are right back where they started. Like any attempt to fix the economy so it works for everyone, apparently.
But you needn't worry about politics or economics to enjoy Moneyball. Like all great movies, you've got a great cast, one that continually rewards you. You've got the always-underrated Robin Wright there in another thankless supporting role. You've got Philip Seymour Hoffman in his classic Patch Adams mode, the mainstream naysayer standing in Beane's way as A's manager. You've got Jonah Hill reinventing his career as a dramatic actor, inspiring and encouraging Beane to look beyond the standard. And you've got...Chris Pratt?
In 2011, Pratt was two years into his career-making turn in the sitcom Parks & Recreation, three away from his breakout role in Guardians of the Galaxy. In Moneyball he plays one of three key small-salary players Beane scoops up to replace superstars. I can't be sure that this isn't hindsight speaking, but he easily stands out from the pack, acting-wise, and even in a small role stands out in the film, without hamming it up, as he does in Guardians. (In Parks he was cast in the John Krasinski Office role, and not unsurprisingly both have since taken the classic lovable everyman role to cinematic success.) Anyway, it's clear he stands out, that he's destined for greater things, and so it's a fun way to experience Pratt before he hit big. For all I know, Moneyball played a role in helping him get there.
As a lifelong fan of the A's, I always wanted to see the movie just on that front alone, and I wanted to know whether it acknowledged Beane's legacy with the 2004 Red Sox win in the World Series, and whether or not it referenced the "Greek God of Walks," Kevin Youkilis (items two and three? check and check). (Of course Beane usurper Theo Epstein, who helped engineer Boston's 2004 curse reversal, did it again with the Cubs after the film was released.)
The film puts a hard focus on some things and a soft one on others. It glosses over the ace pitching staff the A's had that season, all of whom were later poached (I've long called the A's the farm system of the rest of the league, which made it funny when Beane laments the same thing in the movie) by other teams. Clearly it has a narrative it wants to tell. I'm not going to quibble over stuff like that. As I said, it's really an excuse to let Pitt be Brad Pitt. I'll take that. Yeah...
Monday, April 16, 2018
Killing Them Softly (2012)
rating: *****
the story: A hitman explains the mechanics of business.
what it's all about: Over the course of only three films, Andrew Dominik has built a strong legacy. Chopper is an Australian crime drama about a real-life, larger-than-life figure; it gave Eric Bana his first standout performance. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is an elegiac character study about the eponymous event; regardless of the merits of Jesse James himself, Dominik still views it as a tragedy. Killing Them Softly is his first wholly fictional creation (based on a book called Coogan's Trade, by George V. Higgins), and it's a meditation on a whole system. By the end of the film, Brad Pitt is stating "America is...just a business." You will either understand what he's talking about by then, or you won't understand the movie at all.
Killing Them Softly is essentially a mob movie. It's hardly the first mob movie, but it might just be the first one without any glamor attached to it. From Jimmy Cagney to Marlon Brando to Ray Liotta, Hollywood movies have tended to glorify mobsters, or at least held them to be inherently fascinating. Liotta's Goodfellas took it to another level entirely; he's so gleeful and unrepentant about his mobster life he sees anything else as a punishment. Maybe as viewers we're supposed to see the irony of it, but Martin Scorsese has spent so much time guiding us along from Liotta's perspective, it's hard to see it that way. Later, mobsters migrated to television, where James Gandolfini ruled The Sopranos with a iron fist; the final scene of the series famously ends without the viewer knowing whether he ever faces justice; this isn't just ambiguity, it's an open invitation to once and for all root for him.
So to see Gandolfini in Killing Them Softly, indisputably as a ruthless, bad guy mobster, is to finally close a chapter in a very long book. None of Dominik's movies have been massive successes, and that's an understatement. For the vast majority of viewers they don't even exist! Assassination has garnered a cult following over the years, but Killing remains invisible. It's a shame. Part of the reason is no doubt because the movie greets Barack Obama's 2008 election as US president with cynicism; this is considered a sin among the minds most likely to care what a movie has to say about something. The whole movie is about the election; it's as much a framing narrative as Brad Pitt's conversations with Richard Jenkins. When Pitt concludes, in the final dialogue of the movie, that American is a business, Obama's election is on a TV screen in the background.
The whole point of the plot is how relationships affect your fate. Two small-time robbers, including one played by Ben Mendelsohn, are actually the characters we meet first in the movie, and so our sympathies are with them for most of the movie. We see how they think, and how they attempt to outthink the system, and how they fail even when it seems they don't. Pitt and Jenkins discuss their predicament; Pitt is hired to take care of it, but he tries to get out of it, because for him, "killing them softly" means killing at a distance. He doesn't like to get involved unless he has to. Pitt's acquaintance in Gandolfini, meanwhile, reveals how ugly matters really are, and everything he tries not to be, even though he ultimately can't avoid it. It's Jenkins who can pretend otherwise, but only because he's basically at the level of the mob Hollywood usually depicts, the one where nothing really seems to be real, just leaving the gun, taking the cannoli.
Pitt reaches his conclusion because he's tried reconciling things, and it hasn't worked; he still ends up having to become personally involved, and Jenkins tries to pay him less than he's owed, because for Jenkins it's just business, and business usually will try to pay less. But Pitt understands that what business means is having to take control, because no one else is going to look after you. It's not how the business functions that matters, and it's not the outcome that matters, either. It's taking control of your fate. Liotta, in this movie, loses control of his fate. He doesn't realize how badly he screwed himself, just as Gandolfini, for all his bluster, doesn't, or Mendelsohn. It's Pitt who does, because he's ruthless in that business sense, whatever it takes to get ahead.
Anyway, it's fascinating commentary.
the story: A hitman explains the mechanics of business.
what it's all about: Over the course of only three films, Andrew Dominik has built a strong legacy. Chopper is an Australian crime drama about a real-life, larger-than-life figure; it gave Eric Bana his first standout performance. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is an elegiac character study about the eponymous event; regardless of the merits of Jesse James himself, Dominik still views it as a tragedy. Killing Them Softly is his first wholly fictional creation (based on a book called Coogan's Trade, by George V. Higgins), and it's a meditation on a whole system. By the end of the film, Brad Pitt is stating "America is...just a business." You will either understand what he's talking about by then, or you won't understand the movie at all.
Killing Them Softly is essentially a mob movie. It's hardly the first mob movie, but it might just be the first one without any glamor attached to it. From Jimmy Cagney to Marlon Brando to Ray Liotta, Hollywood movies have tended to glorify mobsters, or at least held them to be inherently fascinating. Liotta's Goodfellas took it to another level entirely; he's so gleeful and unrepentant about his mobster life he sees anything else as a punishment. Maybe as viewers we're supposed to see the irony of it, but Martin Scorsese has spent so much time guiding us along from Liotta's perspective, it's hard to see it that way. Later, mobsters migrated to television, where James Gandolfini ruled The Sopranos with a iron fist; the final scene of the series famously ends without the viewer knowing whether he ever faces justice; this isn't just ambiguity, it's an open invitation to once and for all root for him.
So to see Gandolfini in Killing Them Softly, indisputably as a ruthless, bad guy mobster, is to finally close a chapter in a very long book. None of Dominik's movies have been massive successes, and that's an understatement. For the vast majority of viewers they don't even exist! Assassination has garnered a cult following over the years, but Killing remains invisible. It's a shame. Part of the reason is no doubt because the movie greets Barack Obama's 2008 election as US president with cynicism; this is considered a sin among the minds most likely to care what a movie has to say about something. The whole movie is about the election; it's as much a framing narrative as Brad Pitt's conversations with Richard Jenkins. When Pitt concludes, in the final dialogue of the movie, that American is a business, Obama's election is on a TV screen in the background.
The whole point of the plot is how relationships affect your fate. Two small-time robbers, including one played by Ben Mendelsohn, are actually the characters we meet first in the movie, and so our sympathies are with them for most of the movie. We see how they think, and how they attempt to outthink the system, and how they fail even when it seems they don't. Pitt and Jenkins discuss their predicament; Pitt is hired to take care of it, but he tries to get out of it, because for him, "killing them softly" means killing at a distance. He doesn't like to get involved unless he has to. Pitt's acquaintance in Gandolfini, meanwhile, reveals how ugly matters really are, and everything he tries not to be, even though he ultimately can't avoid it. It's Jenkins who can pretend otherwise, but only because he's basically at the level of the mob Hollywood usually depicts, the one where nothing really seems to be real, just leaving the gun, taking the cannoli.
Pitt reaches his conclusion because he's tried reconciling things, and it hasn't worked; he still ends up having to become personally involved, and Jenkins tries to pay him less than he's owed, because for Jenkins it's just business, and business usually will try to pay less. But Pitt understands that what business means is having to take control, because no one else is going to look after you. It's not how the business functions that matters, and it's not the outcome that matters, either. It's taking control of your fate. Liotta, in this movie, loses control of his fate. He doesn't realize how badly he screwed himself, just as Gandolfini, for all his bluster, doesn't, or Mendelsohn. It's Pitt who does, because he's ruthless in that business sense, whatever it takes to get ahead.
Anyway, it's fascinating commentary.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
*****
directed by: Andrew Dominik
starring: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, Mary-Louise Parker, Zooey Deschanel
Released in 2007.
One of my hallmarks of great storytelling is knowing your characters. It's not always essential to base the entire story around exploring these characters so much as what happens to them, but it certainly helps. This is a movie about Robert Ford, not Jesse James. As the title suggests, Ford killed James, and this is an attempt to explain why.
Actually, that's half the fascination for me about Assassination of Jesse James, that it doesn't feature the more famous of its subjects as the lead. In this movie, Jesse James is more myth than man. All his best banditry is in the past. He's actually just a man, but he's most definitely a myth to Robert Ford, who has grown up reading about Jesse and all but fallen in love with him (although that's more implied than explicit). The basic plot is Robert signing up to be a part of Jesse's last big job and the gang's efforts to then fade away.
Now, obviously the notoriety of Jesse James works both ways. He'll have had his admirers. He'll also have had the authorities gunning for him. Robert Ford ends up straddling both, once he finally sees behind the curtain he previously held in front of Jesse. That's how he ends up standing behind the famous outlaw as Jesse stands on a chair to some dusting. It's a moment that's repeated several times at the back-end of the movie, first as it really happens and later as Robert recreates it for the stage. Because it's Robert's movie, it continues after the title event, as the so-called coward tries to come to peace with what he's done.
Robert Ford is portrayed by Casey Affleck, the younger brother of Ben Affleck. Although Casey has cared a pretty respectable career for himself, he's nowhere near the league of his brother. For one, he has a softer voice that he either can't or won't mask. It's an ideal feature for a youthful and naive character like Robert Ford, a sycophant who definitely suggests the sickness of such a role. You have sympathy for him, sometimes, and at others you despise him.
Which is funny, because the man he shoots was not a good man. Well, maybe some people could construe Jesse James in a positive light. In this movie he's played by the bigger star, Brad Pitt. I've long been interested in the career of Pitt. He's filled it with contradictory roles, mostly because he's terrified of being defined only by his physical appearance. Jesse James is certainly one of those contradictory roles, and maybe it's exactly right to cast a big star in the role, to signal to the audience in an immediate way that aside from everything else this was a guy who knew how to draw attention to himself. There would always be a lot more to him than someone like Robert Ford could comprehend, and yet he was also exactly what his historical reputation marks him out to be: a bad apple.
Yet Pitt finds the human in him, enough so that you're forced to remember that in Robert's mind this was a horribly complicated situation. Jesse was a hero to him, Robert's idol, and yet the man didn't live up to the myth. Robert quite deliberately shot him in the back. Pitt doesn't make the role too flashy, which is an underrated specialty of his. Occasionally he'll take a role like in Twelve Monkeys where he's a spastic attraction, but that speaks more to Pitt's range than any particular style. In the end he's exactly what he wants to be, and that's not just a pretty face. Assassination of Jesse James is his best film.
Director Andrew Dominik, who's still only at the start of a brilliant career, hits an unmistakable milestone with this film. It's divisive, because it's meditative where most viewers prefer action or clever characters, but it's also one of the most gorgeous movies you'll ever see. It's also got, behind Pitt and Affleck, plenty of supporting actors you'l love to watch navigate the film, including Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, and Zooey Deschanel.
directed by: Andrew Dominik
starring: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, Mary-Louise Parker, Zooey Deschanel
Released in 2007.
One of my hallmarks of great storytelling is knowing your characters. It's not always essential to base the entire story around exploring these characters so much as what happens to them, but it certainly helps. This is a movie about Robert Ford, not Jesse James. As the title suggests, Ford killed James, and this is an attempt to explain why.
Actually, that's half the fascination for me about Assassination of Jesse James, that it doesn't feature the more famous of its subjects as the lead. In this movie, Jesse James is more myth than man. All his best banditry is in the past. He's actually just a man, but he's most definitely a myth to Robert Ford, who has grown up reading about Jesse and all but fallen in love with him (although that's more implied than explicit). The basic plot is Robert signing up to be a part of Jesse's last big job and the gang's efforts to then fade away.
Now, obviously the notoriety of Jesse James works both ways. He'll have had his admirers. He'll also have had the authorities gunning for him. Robert Ford ends up straddling both, once he finally sees behind the curtain he previously held in front of Jesse. That's how he ends up standing behind the famous outlaw as Jesse stands on a chair to some dusting. It's a moment that's repeated several times at the back-end of the movie, first as it really happens and later as Robert recreates it for the stage. Because it's Robert's movie, it continues after the title event, as the so-called coward tries to come to peace with what he's done.
Robert Ford is portrayed by Casey Affleck, the younger brother of Ben Affleck. Although Casey has cared a pretty respectable career for himself, he's nowhere near the league of his brother. For one, he has a softer voice that he either can't or won't mask. It's an ideal feature for a youthful and naive character like Robert Ford, a sycophant who definitely suggests the sickness of such a role. You have sympathy for him, sometimes, and at others you despise him.
Which is funny, because the man he shoots was not a good man. Well, maybe some people could construe Jesse James in a positive light. In this movie he's played by the bigger star, Brad Pitt. I've long been interested in the career of Pitt. He's filled it with contradictory roles, mostly because he's terrified of being defined only by his physical appearance. Jesse James is certainly one of those contradictory roles, and maybe it's exactly right to cast a big star in the role, to signal to the audience in an immediate way that aside from everything else this was a guy who knew how to draw attention to himself. There would always be a lot more to him than someone like Robert Ford could comprehend, and yet he was also exactly what his historical reputation marks him out to be: a bad apple.
Yet Pitt finds the human in him, enough so that you're forced to remember that in Robert's mind this was a horribly complicated situation. Jesse was a hero to him, Robert's idol, and yet the man didn't live up to the myth. Robert quite deliberately shot him in the back. Pitt doesn't make the role too flashy, which is an underrated specialty of his. Occasionally he'll take a role like in Twelve Monkeys where he's a spastic attraction, but that speaks more to Pitt's range than any particular style. In the end he's exactly what he wants to be, and that's not just a pretty face. Assassination of Jesse James is his best film.
Director Andrew Dominik, who's still only at the start of a brilliant career, hits an unmistakable milestone with this film. It's divisive, because it's meditative where most viewers prefer action or clever characters, but it's also one of the most gorgeous movies you'll ever see. It's also got, behind Pitt and Affleck, plenty of supporting actors you'l love to watch navigate the film, including Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, and Zooey Deschanel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)