The Assassination of Jesse James (By the coward Robert Ford)
(Andrew Dominik, 2007)

IMDB

The assassination of Jesse James is the story of Robert Ford, a 19 year old who idolises Jesse, but who later is branded a coward for killing one of America's most loved criminals. Set in 1881, the film is a recount of the last few months of James' life and the events that followed his death.

The story is told by a narrator whose voice is always accompanied by childlike, soothing and almost haunting music- like that found in a musical jewellery box. The film is often in slow motion as the narrator speaks. He talks of Jesse like a legend, and his image appears on screen amongst a haze of blurred edges, like some sort of mythological being, tinges of red and blue surrounding the image like a 3D filter creating a very surreal and detached effect.

The colours of the opening scene are very washed out, lots of white, pale brown and grey; the long grass a dry, muted gold. The first scene creates a sense of mystery around Jesse James, the tall, linear, dry white trees surrounding The James Gang, towering above them like columns of withered marble. The key word for the majority of scenes that follow seems to be the word dry. Everything drained of water, colour and health, maybe reflecting The James Gang as a whole- tired and dry, many members now dead or too old to partake in any more criminal activity.

The scene continues at night time, showing the robbers waiting in the trees aside the railway line, waiting for the train to reach their previously set block. The screen is pitch black until we see the train approaching, the lights flooding the trees with bright white light, revealing their pale dryness once again. The shadows from these dry columns cast over the masked horrors, silently waiting in the trees. Their makeshift masks of cloth and sack, equally as dry-looking as their setting.

Once on the train, the setting is very different. Inside the mail carriage the lighting is very dark, lots of polished dark wood surfaces and panels. The main colour appears to be brown- the dark wood and the lighter brown for the package wrapping paper. The James Gang appear very out of place here, their somewhat tatty, itchy-looking clothes, much less at home on this train than amongst the dry trees. The layout of the train is very narrow and linear. Each carriage very long and thin. The mail carriage particularly linear, with it's wooden panels, windows and bars/railings. Following this scene, there is a substantial shift in tone and colour. The heavy rain, bringing with it, tones of midnight blue, deep purples and black.

The difference between Jesse James and Robert Ford is considerable. The way each man composes themselves is difference enough; James composed and still, quiet but still an overwhelming presence. And Ford, awkward and fidgety in disbelief of being so close to his childhood hero. Ford also still so young, rocks contently in his chair, grinning.

Throughout the film there are several shots of long, dry grass. Lot's of browns and muted yellows amongst a lot of framing within the camera frame, (shots filmed through frames, e.g. Windows, door frames, bars, etc.)

In a later scene, filmed in the house of Ed Miller, (one of the James gang), the mise-en-scene is very cluttered and run down, a house that has been left to gradually decay. The curtains merely rags of cloth, damaged furnishings scattered amongst the ruins of this broken home- as broken as Miller who knows his fate as Jesse appears at his home. “Insomnia stained his eye sockets like soot”- an accurate observation of the house as well as the man who exists in it. The scene is very washed out, pale and pasty. The home is very tired and again dry, sunlight beams through the one small window, casting light onto the dust that blankets the room. The scenery surrounding the house is equally run down, the dry grass overgrown, the wooden panels deteriorating, the fence broken and in a state of decay. The sky, an overcast sheet of grey, over the once white, wooden house that now sits quietly dying, paint peeling from it's tired panels. I like the whole decaying effect, I think there's a real beauty in the natural wear and tear of life.