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?
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.
Also, recall that the population density was quite thin, especially outside the few scattered towns.
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.
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.
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.
I didn’t meant Jesse James and his cohorts, I meant outlaws as a whole.
Think Billy the kid for example
Billy the Kid wasn’t just an outlaw either.
Lincoln County War and all that … Lincoln County War - Wikipedia
But he was an outlaw
As was Butch Cassidy etc etc
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.
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.
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.
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?”
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.
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.)
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.
Don’t put words in my mouth. I hate action films, as it happens, and your presumptuousness is astonishing.
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.
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?
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.