The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

As ever, a beautifully shot film by Roger Deakins.

Directed by Andrew Dominik
Written by Andrew Dominik, Roy Hanson (novel)
Starring Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Sam Shepard


I've spoken before about twists, and about the spoiling of them.  It's not always easy to talk about a plot that takes a sudden and unexpected turn, without at least hinting about the change of direction.  On the other hand, do any of us really want to spoil a big twist in a film for anyone else?  Do we really want to give the ending away, do we really want to take away the joy of discovery?

It is with some relief, then, that I come to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.  If ever a film was upfront about its intentions, this must be it.  There's no trickery in that title, there's no leading you down the wrong path.  Nor is it fundamentally incorrect, like Krakatoa East of Java.  Nor, for that matter, is it gently prodding you to the wrong conclusion, in the sense that The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance wants you to believe that the fellow in question is James Stewart rather than John Wayne.  Nope, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford does exactly what it says, and never lets you forget it.  We've read the last page of the book, and now we're bound to watch the earlier pages being fitted into place.

In a sense, we're involved, we're voyeurs, we're caught in a story that we know will certainly end in death.  We know who's going to be killed, we know who's going to do the killing.  And this isn't a story like, say, Titanic, where we know the iceberg is coming but here's a girl and a boy making fools out of themselves to distract you for three and a half long, tortuous hours.  Nor is it Gandhi, a film that begins with the certainty of a shooting but never lets you think that the shooting is the be-all-and-end-all of the story; it's a conclusion that we have to reach, but there's so much more to see along the way.  No, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford isn't about anything else.  You're here to see the murder.  The title even tells you that it's not going to be a noble or heroic death.

However, the characters don't know this.  Hence the voyeurism; we know exactly what's coming, and how ugly it's going to be, but we're going to watch all concerned find out for themselves.  It's very appropriate that the film has us follow not the charismatic, legendary outlaw, but the coward of the title (a superb performance by the younger, and arguably more talented Affleck), his weakness, his guilt.  Jesse James is often distant, or part in shadow, or moving away from us - while we stay much closer to the antihero of the tale.  And that, ultimately, is where we belong; we can relate to the coward far more than we can relate to the outlaw.

Relating to the coward, following him voyeuristically, these are not easy subjects, and it would have been very easy for this film to fail, to become preachy and heartless.  Fortunately, it doesn't fail at all (although it could have been twenty minutes shorter without losing anything), thanks to a fine script and beautiful and inventive photography by the always wonderful Roger Deakins.  It's the elegance of the movie that allows us, nay makes us engage with Ford's weak and petty everyman.

Towards the end of the picture, Ford is asked why he did it:

Well, he was going to kill me.
So you were scared, and that's the only reason?
Yeah, and the reward money.

 Fear and avarice, in the end, are dreadfully human qualities, whether we want to admit to them or not.

Love Is The Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998)

Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon - the artist, not the philosopher-scientist.

Directed by John Maybury

Written by John Maybury

Starring Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig, Tilda Swinton

Call it what you will: divine intervention, sudden happenstance, the random element; a chance development drops in and entirely changes the direction of the plot. Banal Michael Caine vehicle Blue Ice gives us a large piece of, well, blue ice plummeting from the sky – as per the urban myth –and on to an invitingly shady character. Rather more credibly, Janet Leigh was doing just fine, set to build a new life with all that stolen money, until she happened upon the wrong motel. Robert Rodgriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s grammatically flawed From Dusk Till Dawn shifts from heist movie to action-horror with an unexpected stop amongst a den of vampires. The Toy Story world is transformed by the out-of-the-blue arrival of a shiny new Buzz Lightyear action figure (who then himself bursts unexpected into the try-your-luck world of the three-eyed alien toys).  

The new story dropping on to the old through means beyond anyone’s control crops up, rather literally, in John Maybury’s Love Is The Devil. Whether there’s actually any truth in the tale of small-time criminal George Dyer falling through a skylight into Francis Bacon’s studio is a secret that the two men took to their graves – not that it matters. It’s a fine tale, and were it ever to emerge that they met on a night out or bumped into one another while out shopping, we may be wiser but also a tad disapponted. And Maybury’s certainly not too concerned with such historical questions: his Dyer plunges from the heavens, his Bacon (Jacobi) invites the visitor to bed, and from there the erstwhile burglar rapidly slips over into being the artist’s lover, model, muse.

It’s the rise and fall of this relationship about which the picture revolves, as simple, working class Dyer (Craig) tries to adapt to his new life, the new world he occupies, Bacon’s world, the artist’s fame and friends and wants and demands. Tries, and fails. Bacon needs Dyer, artistically and physically, yet he’s irritated by a man so unlike himself or those he normally spends his time with; the artist grows tired of his muse, but cannot let him go – so ends up funding his collapse into alcoholism and despair, whilst the art, inspired by and often depicting Dyer, reaches extraordinary new heights.  

And Jacobi’s performance is every bit as towering; indeed, it rather holds the film together in places, for whenever we move beyond the boundaries of Dyer and Bacon’s storm, the fire dies and the picture slows to a drab, staid, predictable progress. The artist’s circle of friends are a muddle of by-numbers stereotypes, straight from the cinema’s big book of extroverted homosexuals – while Dyer’s equivalent, if rather smaller, cluster of acquaintances are all Cockney ne’erdowells, a little bit dodgy, and blimey mister they don’t rightly trust these toffs, folk who aren’t like us, who’ll just use you and throw you away. Had they been on screen a little longer, I’m sure one of them would’ve started selling eels.  

Maybury could easily have found himself also slipping up over the presentation of the picture. After all, his subject was a figurative, abstract painter, one indelibly associated with dramatic and vivid bursts of colour; it’s only natural for the director to bring a comparable artistic sensibility to the movie. However, there’s a fine line between an expressionist touch and outright pretentiousness, and after all, Maybury has not the same talent in that area as Bacon had. There’s a risk of the director ending up looking as though he's simply trying to imitate Bacon, and although he managed to stay on the right side of that rather fine line, it wasn’t by much.  

Perhaps he was able to do so because the picture as a whole is lifted by Jacobi’s performance. And I really can’t stress this enough – the performance was exceptional, powerful, magnificent; ably supported by a typically effective and engaging display by Craig, but it remains the veteran’s turn as Bacon that stands out, that carries the film from worthy mediocrity to something far more impressive.

 

In recent weeks, I’ve seen a film – Tomas Alfredson’s superb Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – in which an outstanding cast built upon the lustre of an otherwise very fine picture, and another – Franklin J. Schaffner’s frankly embarrassing The Boys From Brazil – in which the outstanding cast didn’t and couldn’t rescue a shockingly poor film. Love Is The Devil falls between these two stools, a reasonable enough movie made far better by its cast. In that respect, it’s definitely worth watching; in that respect, it could never be a masterpiece.