Cynical Cinema

It was the mother of Jesse James, in real life, who would select the words for his epitaph. “In Loving Memory of my Beloved Son, Murdered by a Traitor and Coward Whose Name is not Worthy to Appear Here”. The new movie, starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, feels that Robert Ford’s name IS worthy to appear in their title alongside that of James. That the two men were equally important parts to the same story. It’s a story that has been told many times, in books, music, and of course movies. Jesse James has been played by Tyrone Power, Red Barry, Roy Rogers, Clayton Moore, Audie Murphy, Robert Wagner, Robert Duvall, Kris Kristofferson and Rob Lowe. Among others. The worst portrayal of James was Colin Farrell’s in American Outlaws - mostly because that movie was so very very terrible. The best may well be Brad Pitt in this film. Whose title I won’t keep typing for fear of developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

But Brad Pitt is outdone considerably in this movie by Casey Affleck. Yes, Casey Affleck, the kid brother of Ben, who has never appeared in any significant role in his life and yet all of a sudden finds himself in two of the biggest roles in two of the best movies of the year! And he is good. In both - it isn’t just his brother’s direction that makes him great, he is just legitimately an excellent actor. Robert Ford has been played by John Carradine, whose four sons became actors. Son David was later killed by Uma Thurman. He has also been played by John Ireland, and some guy on an episode of Little House on the Prairie. But the best protrayal is without a doubt Affleck’s in this movie, and he richly deserved his Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor. Although Brad Pitt is a Movie Star, and his public persona dwarfs his talent, people forget that he is an outstanding actor. Outdoing him in a movie is a considerable achievement.

Pitt at his very best reminds me a little of Paul Newman, and watching this movie reminded me of Paul Newman’s portrayal of Billy The Kid in The Left-Handed Gun (1958). He’s an outlaw on the edge of sanity, paranoid and almost childish in his outlook. He seems to be the kind of guy who has reached the end of his rope, and almost welcomes his own death. Death is his deliverance, and I think the title of the movie makes it pretty clear it happens, and as such this is not much of a spoiler. Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel, Mary-Louise Parker, and Sam Shephard are all excellent in supporting roles, and James Carville makes a bizarre appearance as the governor. Nick Cave shows up as a saloon singer, and Hugh Ross lends just the right tone to keep the story moving as the narrator.

Jesse James, in his day, was about the most famous person in America, outside the president, because his exploits were followed in the papers. He was a celebrity simply because he was someone that people had heard of, and there were not many of those around at the time. Even at the time, he was considered a hero in the west, because the papers protrayed him as an anti-establishment fighter on the side of good. But of course, he was really just a bandit and a murderer who happened to get good press. Che Guevara he was not. This movie captures the tone perfectly, Robert Ford being an idol-worshipping sycophant to James and his gang at first. He has been a die-hard Jesse James fan since he was a small boy, and now that he comes face to face with the reality of the outlaw, he becomes completely torn between his hero-worship and his desire for self-preservation. And the film has a surprisingly un-dramatic conclusion, given the subject matter contained so succinctly in the title. Like the best westerns of all time (and this is among the top 200 ever made) death is just something that happens as a natural course of living, whether it be because of the elements, sickness, or at the hand of other men.

Westerns have gone through many ups and downs in movie history. John Ford’s Stagecoach, in 1939, was the first movie to suggest that westerns could be real feature films, A-list movies, rather than continuing as it was in B-movie, black-and-white serials and the like. That was the golden age of the western, when John Wayne and John Ford were kings, Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart were major stars, and films like The Searchers, High Noon, Shane, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance were among some of the best ever made. There was a big resurgence in the western genre during the 70s, when the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood breathed some life back into the genre. Then it died again, until the 90s, when Unforgiven in 1992 became one of the greatest movies of all time, and quite possibly the best western. This resurgence led mostly to B-grade fluff, like Bad Girls and The Quick And The Dead, and nothing of substance. I sincerely hope now that films like 3:10 to Yuma and The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford mark a more substantial return to significance in the history of the western, and that more movies like this one can be made. But even if not, the fact that this particular movie was made is reason enough to be happy.

Thanks to Lars and the Real Girl, I have spent an hour on realdoll.com doing research.  These are basically blow-up dolls, just really high-end.  So you order them for sex, and they get delivered to your house (delivery is at least 500 bucks itself), at the cost of $7,500.00 or more.  The website proclaims that they are perfectly realistic in every way (except that they are unable to speak, react, or do…anything).  And I think I found Lars’ girl.  She’s face #6, with the red lipstick and hairstyle #0731, and…OK.  I have spent WAY too much time on this site.  Anyway, it all seems bizarre to me.  My dad always said that a car may cost $15,000.00, but fifteen grand buys a LOT of taxi rides.  This was his way of making me really think about buying a car.  I apply the same logic here.  If you really need sex that badly, ten grand can buy a LOT of hookers.  And you can get a new one every day.  (Try to skip Vanier though.)  I have discovered, in the past, that I can get bored with the same girl day in and day out, after about two weeks.  Now, imagine that she doesn’t talk to you or move around at all.  How fast would you get bored of that?  And there goes ten grand…

Anyway, Lars and the Real Girl is about Lars (Ryan Gosling), who is an eccentric weirdo in a small town who can’t form regular relationships with other people.  He lives in the garage of his brother’s house, and barely talks to anyone on his way to and from work.  His brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Gus’ wife (Emily Mortimer) are constantly trying to break Lars out of his shell, but it isn’t working.  Lars ignores the one girl at his office who has a crush on him, because he is incapable of touching people.  Then, all of a sudden, he shows up with this “real girl”.  Who is hilariously dressed in the skankiest outfit imaginable.  He calls her Bianca and introduces her to his brother and sister-in-law as his new girlfriend.  He has constructed an elaborate back story for Bianca.  She is a missionary, and is arriving from Spain, and her luggage and wheelchair got stolen at the airport, so can she borrow some of your clothes?  His family plays along, even when he asks if Bianca can sleep in their guest bedroom (she is a Christian, and believes strongly that they should not sleep together before marriage).  And this is what makes the whole thing work.  This is obviously a sex doll, and if he bought it for sex, that would just be creepy.  But he does not want it for sex at all, and it ends up being kind of sweet.  He wants people to see him as a normal human being, with a girlfriend in a wheelchair, but he is also deluded enough to believe that she IS real.  And that others will believe this as well.

He talks to her as though she is answering him.  Like Casey used to do to Finnegan on Mr. Dressup.  And then he tells people what she says.  She is painfully shy, you see, and she will only talk to him.  Before long, the entire town is buying into this fantasy, and they keep taking Bianca away for sewing circles and PTA meetings and they get her to read to kids at the local elementary school.  He certainly seems happier when Bianca is around, like Jimmy Stewart with his giant rabbit in Harvey, and like Harvey, Bianca is a harmless delusion for an otherwise charming and likeable guy.  There are some elements of the plot that are odd - like the girl at Lars’ office with a crush on him.  Sure, she’s kind of weird, but is she weird enough to be into THIS guy?  And how healthy is it, really, that everyone goes along with his bizarre delusion, all the way to it’s conclusion, which I won’t reveal here.

 This movie is too long.  Gosling is terrific, but he undergoes character development only toward the end, and the middle of the movie is an extended set-piece of people giving strange looks to him and Bianca.  Some of this is funny, in fact a lot of it is, but it drags.  This movie could have been done in a little over an hour, and there is an extra half hour that could have been left on the cutting room floor.  But it is a sweet, charming little movie about a sweet, charming little man.  It’s genuinely funny and has a big heart.  It’s worth the extra half hour.