# The Assassination of Jesse James **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 20, 2008, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960 "2008-05-20T12:44:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/21 "2008-05-21T17:44:23Z")
One of the two or three very best movies from last year. The OP is another lesson in demanding a movie meet your (arbitrary) expectations rather than watching a movie for what it is. Hmm; wonder which experience tends to be more enjoyable? ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/22 "2008-05-21T18:12:32Z")
It’s not just that it was slow. . .it seemed to be all over the place. That’s what made it hard to get into for me. They’re outlaws, then they’re in the house in Baltimore (was it?) then there’s the married couple fueding, and people get shot over stuff. I’m sure it hung together, but my attention lagged so often that every time I looked up, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I know that people who like the movie won’t be swayed by someone who admittedly didn’t have the attention span to stick with it, but there you are. . . Overall, I didn’t think it had any more than _Hidalgo_ to say about the myths of the American west, and it said it a lot slower. I love long character studies. . . **There Will Be Blood** was my fave last year. And, I don’t mean to pigeon hole Jesse James as just a character study. It was impressionist, poetic, Malicky (for sure) but if it doesn’t grip you from the start, that’s just the hardest kind of movie to stick with. I (think I) get why people like this movie, but I’m not one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2008, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/23 "2008-05-21T18:33:23Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Realising that the USA is a BIG place and there are loads of places these deperadoes could hide I still am a tad puzzled as to why it took so long. [/QUOTE] Also, recall that the population density was quite thin, especially outside the few scattered towns. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/24 "2008-05-21T21:23:21Z")
[QUOTE=Trunk] Overall, I didn’t think it had any more than _Hidalgo_ to say about the myths of the American west, and it said it a lot slower. [/QUOTE] I think it said more about the myths of real and imagined celebrity than anything to do with the American West as such. To go along with that, it was also about fandom and how it can go sour. Brad Pitt as Jesse James was an excellent casting choice in more ways than one. If it weren’t such an arty film, you could play this as a double-feature with **Selena** and it’d fit pretty well theme-wise (Jennifer Lopez, who was fantastic in the role of Selena–yes, she CAN act, wasn’t a star when she did this movie, but I’ll bet she got some good lessons for later in her career. Mostly sad and paranoid lessons). I haven’t seen **Chapter 27** about Mark David Chapman and John Lennon but it would probably go well too to make a triple-feature. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2008, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/25 "2008-05-21T21:36:19Z")
Very few westerns are actually about the Myths of the American West. Most of the good ones are actually about the times they were made in, like most good SF. Recontextualization of current issues is one of the best ways to look at them in a fresh light, and is a great tradition of American genre fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea666f/32.png) [@Two\_and\_a\_Half\_Inches\_of\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2008, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/26 "2008-05-21T21:37:23Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Staying on the subject of old west outlaws. Why were these guys allowed to go on the rampage for years on end before being shot/captured/lynched or whatever. Realising that the USA is a BIG place and there are loads of places these deperadoes could hide I still am a tad puzzled as to why it took so long. You had marshalls, Pinkerton agents, bounty hunters and so on. While these baddies were free, they were free to kill, rustle and do what baddies do…bad things [/QUOTE] They were also heroes. They were almost given amnesty by the Missouri state legislature. There were plenty of people who were not only unwilling to help capture them, but who were quite willing to help them. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2008, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/27 "2008-05-22T05:39:09Z")
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun] They were also heroes. They were almost given amnesty by the Missouri state legislature. There were plenty of people who were not only unwilling to help capture them, but who were quite willing to help them. [/QUOTE] I didn’t meant Jesse James and his cohorts, I meant outlaws as a whole. Think Billy the kid for example ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/28 "2008-05-27T12:19:27Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] I didn’t meant Jesse James and his cohorts, I meant outlaws as a whole. Think Billy the kid for example [/QUOTE] Billy the Kid wasn’t just an outlaw either. Lincoln County War and all that .. [Lincoln County War - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_County_War) ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/29 "2008-05-27T15:49:32Z")
But he _was_ an outlaw As was Butch Cassidy etc etc ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/30 "2008-05-27T15:57:39Z")
Another vote for they should have called it _The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward zzzzzzzzzzzz_. I don’t think there’s any inherent contradiction between noting that a movie is beautifully filmed and well acted and yet finding it slow and unengaging. [QUOTE=lissener] The OP is another lesson in demanding a movie meet your (arbitrary) expectations rather than watching a movie for what it is. [/QUOTE] Of course, by this argument, if you don’t enjoy watching paint dry, that’s also your own fault. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/31 "2008-05-27T16:34:11Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] Another vote for they should have called it _The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward zzzzzzzzzzzz_. I don’t think there’s any inherent contradiction between noting that a movie is beautifully filmed and well acted and yet finding it slow and unengaging. Of course, by this argument, if you don’t enjoy watching paint dry, that’s also your own fault. [/QUOTE] It is if you sit down to watch paint dry. I do understand being upset about this movie if you knew nothing about it going in, though. You hear Jessie James and think exciting western, having that rug pulled out from under you is probably kind of a shock. But if you knew anything about it going into it, you knew what you were getting into. And then, yeah, it’s your own fault. I also think that this is the kind of movie that works better in the theater, when you don’t have anything but the movie to focus on. Then it is able to suck you into it’s world with its pace and storytelling. It’s harder to get that immersed in a film at home when you have all the distractions of “real life” surrounding you. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/32 "2008-05-27T17:17:18Z")
[QUOTE=NAF1138] It is if you sit down to watch paint dry. [/quote] No, it only is if you sit down to watch paint dry and it could be super entertaining or it could be boring as shit. Granted, if this (or any other) movie came with the rider THIS IS A BORING MOVIE, then sure, you get what you pay for. Then sure, it’s your own fault. But then I don’t get why fault has to be assigned or value assigned to enjoying one movie or failing to enjoy another, when you don’t know going in if you’ll like it or not. Not everyone is entertained or impressed by the same things. It’s possible to observe an event “for what it is” and still not find it either entertaining or compelling. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/33 "2008-05-27T17:45:15Z")
I agree that this was one of the best movies last year, and along with _Gone, Baby, Gone_ made me think: “Holy shit! When did Casey Affleck become such a good actor?” ---
**Author:** ![greatshakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/58956e/32.png) [@greatshakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greatshakes)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/34 "2008-05-29T13:34:26Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Staying on the subject of old west outlaws. Why were these guys allowed to go on the rampage for years on end before being shot/captured/lynched or whatever. Realising that the USA is a BIG place and there are loads of places these deperadoes could hide I still am a tad puzzled as to why it took so long. You had marshalls, Pinkerton agents, bounty hunters and so on. While these baddies were free, they were free to kill, rustle and do what baddies do…bad things [/QUOTE] There is also the problem of not knowing what anybody looked like. One, or X numbers of pictures couldn’t be a sure way of identifying people back then, esp. a pic that was over a few years old. Also, a Pinkerton man could be led on a wild goose chase by bad advice: “Say, I spotted old Jesse not more’n three weeks ago, right over Cider Peak.” Tales of sightings were probably more numerous that Elvis sightings back then. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/35 "2008-05-29T13:50:19Z")
So if I hated _The Thin Red Line_ for its excruciatingly slow pace and utter humorlessness, there’s a good chance I’m going to hate this movie as well? (On the other hand, I recently watched and loved _Funny Ha Ha_, a meandering, naturalistic, Cassavetes-ian look at post-college anomie in Boston.) ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/36 "2008-05-29T22:31:20Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] So if I hated _The Thin Red Line_ for its excruciatingly slow pace and utter humorlessness . . . [/QUOTE] IOW, if you hated \*TTRL \*because you wanted it to be a traditional war film, with plenty of action and lots of comic relief, instead of a lyrical meditation on the effects of war on an individual and on a group of friends? Then yes; TAoJJ… is not a shoot em up action western; it’s far more internal and nearly poetic in its approach. To repeat myself, you’re more likely to enjoy a movie if you watch it for what it is, rather than for what you \*want \*it to be. If you let TAoJJ… dictate its own pace, and follow where it wants to lead you, rather than sit there fidgeting, wondering when the next action sequence is gonna heat up (according to the Spielberg Scale of plot-punching action rhythm), you might like it. Again, everyone goes to the movies for different reasons. If you go strictly for distraction and “entertainment,” then 3:10 is probably a better bet for you, as far as this year’s westerns go. TAoJJ is, if you ask me, a minor masterpiece of character-driving-the-plot, rather than the opposite. The greatest flaw of the new Indiana Jones, for example, is that the characters are nothing–NOTHING–but non-human game pieces whose only purpose is to be tossed around by the pre-determined plot. Obviously, different people will get different levels of enjoyment out of different approaches to storytelling, but Indy sucked while TAoJJ… is brilliant. IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/37 "2008-05-29T22:37:59Z")
> [@](#): > > IOW, if you hated TTRL because you wanted it to be a traditional war film, with plenty of action and lots of comic relief, instead of a lyrical meditation on the effects of war on an individual and on a group of friends? Then yes; TAoJJ… is not a shoot em up action western; it’s far more internal and nearly poetic in its approach. Don’t put words in my mouth. I hate action films, as it happens, and your presumptuousness is astonishing. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/38 "2008-05-29T23:44:12Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] Don’t put words in my mouth. I hate action films, as it happens, and your presumptuousness is astonishing. [/QUOTE] Please pay attention. I asked a question, didn’t presume anything. “. . . _ **if** _ you hated TTRL because . . .” I can only respond to what you say. If you think my reading of your post would benefit from clarification, then clarify. Your response strikes me as equal parts overreaction and, well, presumption. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/39 "2008-05-30T00:05:13Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] Please pay attention. I asked a question, didn’t presume anything. “. . . _ **if** _ you hated TTRL because . . .” [/QUOTE] Please pay attention. You said _IOW, if_, which I means you were rephrasing his statement, not posing a hypothetical. Where in the words that you rephrased is there anything about \*\*Gadarene \*\*wanting it to be a traditional war film? Exactly how do you justify your rephrasing, other than that it sprung from your own imagination? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960/40 "2008-05-30T00:49:02Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Please pay attention. You said _IOW, if_, which I means you were rephrasing his statement, not posing a hypothetical. Where in the words that you rephrased is there anything about \*\*Gadarene \*\*wanting it to be a traditional war film? Exactly how do you justify your rephrasing, other than that it sprung from your own imagination? [/QUOTE] You’re right; IOW does imply that. If I had left out the “if,” he’d have been justified in accusing me of putting words in his mouth. However, I rephrased only in order to ask, “is this what you meant?” His presumption–and misreading–that I was stating what he said, rather than asking what he meant, was unnecessary, and has plunged this thread into negativeland. Too bad; overall it’s an interesting discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-assassination-of-jesse-james/449960.md?page=3)