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Tuesday, 14 June 2011 05:52
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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a 1983 novel by Ron Hansen based on the killing of American Wild West bandit Jesse James at the hands of Robert Ford.
 
In 2007, the novel was adapted into a film of the same name written and directed by Andrew Dominik. The movie “The Assassination of Jesse James” (in short), explores the private life and public exploits of America’s most notorious outlaw. Brad Pitt stars as legendary Wild West outlaw Jesse James. Another major character of the story is young Robert ‘Bob’ Ford (Casey Affleck) who grows up admiring Jesse, for his celebrated criminal adventures and considers Jesse as his worship idol. 
 
 The story is a narrative of the decline of the infamous James gang. Jesse is the scandalous crook who heads the James Younger gang in every nefarious act. As the charismatic and unpredictable Jesse plans the last train robbery of his career, Bob sets off to join the gang. It is this encounter of Jesse and Bob which sets off the movie. After a lot of efforts, Bob is able to join the gang of the Missouri outlaw and associate with Jesse, whom he idolized since childhood, but gradually becomes resentful of the bandit leader.
 
This jealousy along with few other events makes Bob to conspire with his elder brother, Charlie (Sam Rockwell) to assassinate Jesse in order to be famous and to earn the reward announced on Jesse. When Robert and his brother Charlie sense an opportunity to kill James, they carry out their murderous action. Finally, the mantle of cowardice and the growing perception of James as a folk hero gradually alienate and ultimately destroy the brothers.
Unlike Jesse James movies of the past, Andrew Dominik's film is presented as a psychoanalytical historical epic rather than a shoot-'em-up western. There is a lot of psychological intensity involved, as the film focuses from time to time on the mental conditions of Jesse James and his assassin
The movie title “The Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford” is misconceived. It has been wrongly interpreted compared to as in the novel. The actual denotation of the title is that, Jesse James - a person knowing that he will be done to death in an inglorious manner by law, plans his own end by grooming another person to be his own assassin for which he painstakingly plans every move in making Robert Ford into a completely worthless traitor.
 
The movie was identified as one of the Top 10 movies in 2007 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. The film received two Academy Award nominations for the 80th Academy Awards. Also had been nominated and awarded several accolades for “Best Supporting Actor” (Casey Affleck) and “Best Cinematography” (Roger Deakins). The film also holds a place on Empire's recent list of “The 500 Greatest Films of All Time”. 
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