The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford Appreciation

YES! The one with Brad Pitt coming out, him and the train in shadow, with the smoke and the yellow of the headlights... amazing. I almost gasped out loud. And I really liked the shot of Bob and Charley sitting among the tall grass, just before Jesse comes and tells them not to go anywhere without him. Or how about the one where Jesse and one of the gang members (can't remember which one) are out horse riding and they stop at a pool of water for the horses to drink? (There's such a scene, right? I can't quite remember), with the dark horses and the blue tinged background - amazing.

I don't remember his fake laugh in Ocean's 12 but I know, that scene scared the hell out of me. And the one where he visits one of the gang members at night and he sits on the chair while the other guy sits on his bed - I was scared ****less by that scene, I truly was. Brad Pitt does best when he plays characters straddling the line between insanity and charm, and Jesse was such a character. He really did good.

Oh, I remember that scene as well! Amazing stuff.
 
Oh? I remember watching Troy but that it was rather ho-hum (I suspect I might have rated it worse but I was watching it while recovering from stomach flu so I just needed some sort of distraction). Interesting.

It was beautiful, it really was. Just imagine that mutliplied by ten or twenty on the big screen with surround sound :lol: and the best part was that nobody was interested so the theatre was really empty. When I watched There Will Be Blood there were tons of annoying schoolboys who kept laughing at some of the scenes (granted they weren't the only ones) - but the point is that I wanted to be immersed in the story world but they kept yanking me out into the real world with their laughing. :pout: But the good thing is that with DVD you can put on subtitles - I missed a bit of stuff and got characters mixed up because I couldn't hear some of the dialogue sometimes.
 
I still haven't been able to listen yet! I'm usually a very lazy person and I've had such busy days since last Friday. It's incredibly weird to me! :lol: I just spend all day online looking at stuff and not being able to is odd. lol

Oh, I see. Maybe it's 'lovely' in the sense that it's not violent like everything else. :lol:
 
The score, ah the score. Beautiful. Just amazing. I myself may purchase the soundtrack, it's just so brilliant.
 
I'm so thrilled, I just checked one of the theaters I attend and they have the movie right now. :yay:

I will try my best to go this weekend or next week!!

edited: I missed the movie, it was taken down the same week I found out about it. :(
 
Thanks! :D I was so happy when I rented it.



This is what I kept thinking out when shot after shot kept taking my breath away. :lol: The train sequence with them hiding behind the trees with masks waiting for the crash, then the dust flying around in this black and golden glow..... Flawless. :sigh:

Agreed entirely. And yeah, Brad Pitt was scary as heck! That scene when they're having dinner at Robert's familys home, and he starts laughing at Charley's lame story, he is terrifying! lol It was funny cause he does that fake laugh in Ocean's 12 and it's totally hilarious. In here, I was tempted to run myself! :D

Oh, and the scene when Jesse beats up Robets cousin and then starts crying? That was some great acting as well. BP was amazing.
 
Ah, OK then ;)

It is. And it was the opening bits, the montage of Jesse James at the age of 32... I'm trying to see the reason for the title and the only thing I can think of is the cinematography and the music :lol: In relation to the story it's quite ironic, as Jesse was in no way lovely at that point in time, he was winding down.
 
Hee. :) Cool! I didn't know where you were from.

You said that perfectly. I also loved that Jesse was aware of all this and sort of relished his manipulation of Bob and all the others.

Oh yeah! Another Brad Pitt movie with this theme is "Troy." Regardless of how good/bad an adaptation it was, I loved the theme of immortality through fame and legend. Achilles lived for it, and in a sense, Jesse was going to be this type of figure wether he wanted to or not.

I'm sad as well that this movie wasn't seen by too many people. I'm still mad I missed it in theaters, I can only imagine how beautiful it looked.
 
Exactly. Brad Pitt's Jesse James is really good and he should get more credit for it (I think his pretty face really distracts people from the calibre of his acting, sometimes - in this movie at least). But Casey totally deserves all the acclaim he's been getting, in fact I don't think he's gotten enough. I kind of pity Brad, his performance has been completely overshadowed (by the critics at least) by Casey's performance. Brad's Jesse James was great, but Casey's Bob Ford was just a level higher.

I haven't seen No Country for Old Men so I can't talk about Javier Bardem's Anton Chirrguh, but I think it's sad that Casey probably won't win it. He really deserves to. And I've heard of that but it hasn't come here yet... which is the better movie, though?

ETA: Can't believe I forgot to mention the score. It was beautiful. I need to watch this again.
 
Congratulations Nikki! So glad you finally watched it and enjoyed it very much as well. And I have to agree with everything you said. It wasn't too long, the acting was incredible and Roger Deakins, amazing. Now you know why I felt so bad for him never winning an Oscar before - although I must say that Roger Elswitt's work for There Will Be Blood was also incredible. It really was an extremely strong field, Cinematography, anyone could have won it.

Exactly, again - it was the how and the why, not the what. Everyone knows the story already so it's not a surprise to anyone anyway, revealing the ending in the title. And because we know, we pay attention to every cue, every small gesture and word, every instance and incident. It's a character study, not a plotboiler. I think people didn't get that and so they found it boring/too slow.

And yes, Jesse James was very interesting as well. It wasn't just a character study of Bob Ford, it was also a study of Jesse James. I felt that Brad Pitt was really good as well. He was just the right mix of charisma and slight insanity, so he was incredibly scary. I thought Casey shone, but Brad was really good as well.

Ah, just such an underrated movie all around. And :lol: I didn't watch TTRL but I didn't think SiL was a very good movie, no idea how it won Best Picture. The Academy are crazy, they are. :no:
 
I didn't know that! :eek: I'm Singaporean by the way. If you wanted to know/if I hadn't told you.

Yes, I think so too. I think a lot of the movie is Bob's struggle to accept that in reality his hero wasn't like the image he had - like you know it in your head but it takes time to convince your heart. That growing realisation, coupled with his anger at always being mocked made him want to do something that would make him famous as Bob Ford, ie murder Jesse James.

Yup. It's funny how legends become even more so in death don't you think? I like how the movie has so much relevance even in today's age. I'm sad that hardly anyone saw it, to be honest - it's just such an all-round amazing film, with great directing, a good script, amazing acting, a beautiful score and jaw-dropping cinematography. Why didn't people want to see it? Plebeians :P

No problem. :)
 
Tomorrow I'll listen to the songs! I'm more rested now so I can finally be online again full time. :nod:

"Rather Lovely Thing" is a great title, but I guess it is ironic considering the movie it was written for. Hee!
 
Yeah! I really like 'Rather Lovely Thing' and 'Song for Jesse'. Also 'Song for Charley' is not bad too. I wonder why the first song is called 'Rather Lovely Thing' though, it seems a bit ironic doesn't it? Maybe that was the point...

Listening to the soundtrack has made me wnat to watch the movie again - I tried to look for it online (as I'm a cheap bastard, this is true) but it was horribly out of sync. :( I would rent it but it's new so it's rather expensive. Blah.

I know. I don't know why they didn't bother with extras, that really sucks. :(
 
i saw 'the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford' almost 3 months ago in a theater.....the cinematography is breathtaking...and deserving of an academy awards nomination and win....so is the best supporting actor nomination for casey affleck.....surprisingly what a lot of people are failing to notice is the performance by brad pitt as "jesse james"......imo it's one of his best performances in years....

off topic if you haven't seen 'gone baby gone' with casey affleck i would recomend that you do.....in a way it has a similar theme to it...it's about a man who takes a great risk and suffers dire consequences.....it features another terrific performance by casey....
 
I want him to win, too, but I think Javier Bardem will for No Country for Old Men :(

I saw The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford today (it was fun to type out everything). It was great! I loved the acting. It was superb. Casey Affleck was Bob Ford; he was compelling, he drew you in so that every scene without him felt flatter. Casey outshone Brad Pitt - but that's not to say Brad was bad, no. Brad was good. His Jesse James was charismatic, menacing, instable, volatile - you could see why men were attracted to him and yet scared ****less by him. But Casey's Bob Ford just had this desperation that grabs your attention, somehow. Towards the end you knew that Jesse James had to die. Bob Ford knew it, Jesse James knew it - the last moments of them together were mesmerising and the acting was spot on.

And the rest of the movie was excellent as well. The cinematography - if Roger Deakin doesn't win, I will throw a fit - was stunning. Such open spaces that might make a man feel so small. In particular the Coward (the movie perfectly showed how inconsequential he was made to feel), and Casey's acting was spot on. It made his "I've been nothing all my life ... you bet I won't spoil it" (can't remember the words) speech haunting. Okay, I'm sorry for harping on Casey Affleck so much, but that's how much his performance moved me.
 
That's wonderful they have the music up! I can't wait to listen to everything! :sigh:

Yeah... I always love DVD extras, listening to the people who made it and how they feel and how some things came to be. :nod:
 
Back
Top