A languorous art-western in the fabled mold of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Heaven's Gate and Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, Andrew Dominik's two-hour-and-40-minute The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. Some will see it as a pretentious slog, others as sheer poetry, but one thing's for sure: They don't make 'em like this anymore.
Dominik has a long-standing fascination with true crime — his 2000 Chopper tackled one of Australia's most notorious murderers — but The Assassination of Jesse James is far less interested in gunplay than in mulling over its aesthetics and effects. The film presents Jesse James (Brad Pitt) as an early contender in the Cult of Personality — he and Mark Twain were the only Americans known in Europe in the late 19th century — and much is made here of the urge to bask in the outlaw's celebrity, of people wanting to hang around him, even to be him.
Meandering back and forth through time, the movie lays out its elliptical story assisted by a melancholy, matter-of-fact voice-over that gives up its details as methodically as Robert Bresson making his case in The Trial of Joan of Arc. The movie throws out much of the James legend, meditating upon its anti-hero as he goes through wild mood swings, alternately depressed, buoyant and unhinged, and ultimately even takes on a weirdly Christ-like aspect, wondering which of his squabbling gang members is going to betray him. James' Judas turns out to be Robert Ford (Casey Affleck), a confused hanger-on whose obsession borders on the homoerotic, and whose titular act of violence briefly makes him even more famous than the celebrity killer he kills.
There's subtext for miles here — in fact, there's so little action that some might even say the movie is all subtext — and the perfectly composed imagery of endless plains, forests and snowy fields resonate with a timeless beauty not unlike what you'd find in a Terrence Malick film. An appreciation of The Assassination of Jesse James hinges less on suspension of disbelief than on suspension of our reliance on snappy pace and linear plotting, but those who do give themselves over to the film's demanding poetry may find themselves well rewarded.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (R) Stars Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Paul Schneider, Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, Garret Dillahunt, Mary-Louise Parker and Michael Parks. Opens Oct. 19 at local theaters. 4.5 stars
This article appears in Oct 17-23, 2007.