Director: Andrew Dominik
Year: 2007
Book by: Ron Hansen
Adapted by: Andrew Dominik
Cinematographer: Roger Deakins
Was Jesse James America's first celebrity?
If so Robert Ford was the first obsessed celebrity fanatic. This film shows us the dark nature of this type of celebrity worship, and the lengths to which some will go for that perverse desire of fame. I find this film greatly relevant in our time of celebrity reality TV shows, the gossip on the E! channel, and the statistic that revealed that the current generation most wants fame, even more than fortune.
Gorgeous to look at, and thoroughly enjoyable because of Dominik's non-traditional approach to the western. He doesn't adapt his screenplay to fit the usual hollywood plot-points, doesn't make this an action film, it is more accurately a character-study who's setting is western. I really love this film. It's moody and haunting, and Casey Affleck is perfect in this role, although I really enjoy the acting put forth by the entire cast.
I like Brad Pitt here as well precisely because he plays it down. He gives us maybe a more realistic look at the hero's of legend... they maybe weren't all so charismatic, maybe it was the fans like Robert Ford who built them up so much in the imagination that we can't even recognize the real man living in the shadow of his hyped-up legend.
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