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• Everyone in 1880s America knows Jesse James. Hes the nations most notorious criminal, hunted by the law in 10 states. Hes also the lands greatest hero, lauded as a Robin Hood by the public. Robert Ford? No one knows him. Not yet. But the ambitious 19-year-old aims to change that. Hell befriend Jesse, ride with his gang. And if that doesnt bring Ford fame, hell find a deadlier way.Friendship become

Jesse James was a fabled outlaw, a charismatic, spiritual, larger-than-life bad man whose bloody exploits captured the imagination and admiration of a nation hungry for antiheroes. Robert Ford was a young upstart torn between dedicated worship and murderous jealousy, the "dirty little coward" who coveted Jesse's legend. The powerful, strange, and unforgettable story of their interweaving pathsâ€"and twin destinies that would collide in a rain of blood and betrayalâ€"is a story of America in all ! her rough, conflicted glory and the myths that made her.

2008 soundtrack to the acclaimed film starring Brad Pitt. The soundtrack's composers, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, come from the internationally celebrated bands Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, The Dirty Three and Grinderman. Cave and Ellis composed, played and produced this compelling and intense soundtrack for director Andrew Dominik's savage tale of the true West, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. This soundtrack perfectly captures the charismatic and unpredictable nature of the film's central protagonist. Like the film, Cave and Ellis' music cuts through the mythic figure of Jesse James to reveal the complex, contradictory man beneath. Daring and passionately delivered, this beautiful soundtrack retains its captivating power even without the benefit of Dominik's images. Mute.Hansen re-creates the real West with his imaginative telling of the life of the most famous outlaw of them all, ! Jesse James, and of his death at the hands of the upstart Robe! rt Ford. James, a charismatic, superstitious, and moody man, holds sway over a ragged gang who fear his temper and quick shooting. Robert Ford, a young gang member torn between worshipping Jesse and taking his place, guns him down in cold blood and lives out his days tormented by the killing.Everyone in 1880s America knows Jesse James. He’s the nation’s most notorious criminal, hunted by the law in 10 states. He’s also the land’s greatest hero, lauded as a Robin Hood by the public. Robert Ford? No one knows him. Not yet. But the ambitious 19-year-old aims to change that. He’ll befriend Jesse, ride with his gang. And if that doesn’t bring Ford fame, he’ll find a deadlier way. Friendship becomes rivalry and the quest for fame becomes obsession in this virile epic produced in part by Ridley Scott and featuring gripping portrayals by Brad Pitt (winner of the Venice Film Festival Best Actor Award) as Jesse and Casey Affleck as the youth drawn closer to his goal…and farthe! r from his own humanity.Of all the movies made about or glancingly involving the 19th-century outlaw Jesse Woodson James, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the most reflective, most ambitious, most intricately fascinating, and indisputably most beautiful. Based on the novel of the same name by Ron Hansen, it picks up James late in his career, a few hours before his final train robbery, then covers the slow catastrophe of the gang's breakup over the next seven months even as the boss himself settles into an approximation of genteel retirement. But in another sense all of the movie is later than that. The very title assumes the audience's familiarity with James as a figure out of history and legend, and our awareness that he was--will be--murdered in his parlor one quiet afternoon by a backshooting crony.

The film--only the second to be made by New Zealandâ€"born writer-director Andrew Dominik--reminds us that Dominik's debut film, Ch! opper (2000), was the cunningly off-kilter portrait of ano! ther rea l-life criminal psychopath who became a kind of rock star to his society. The Jesse James of this telling is no Robin Hood robbing the rich to give to the poor, and that train robbery we witness is punctuated by acts of gratuitous brutality, not gallantry. Nineteen-year-old Bob Ford (Casey Affleck) seeks to join the James gang out of hero worship stoked by the dime novels he secretes under his bed, but his glam hero (Brad Pitt) is a monster who takes private glee in infecting his accomplices with his own paranoia, then murdering them for it. In the careful orchestration of James's final moments, there's even a hint that he takes satisfaction in his own demise.

Affleck and Pitt (who co-produced with Ridley Scott, among others) are mesmerizing in the title roles, but the movie is enriched by an exceptional supporting cast: Sam Shepard as Jesse's older, more stable brother Frank; Sam Rockwell as Bob Ford's own brother Charlie, whose post-assassination descent into madness i! s astonishing to behold; Paul Schneider, Garret Dillahunt, and Jeremy Renner as three variously doomed gang members; and Mary-Louise Parker, who as Jesse's wife Zee has few lines yet manages with looks and body language to invoke a wellnigh-novelistic backstory for herself. There are also electrifying cameos by James Carville, doing solid actorly work as the governor of Missouri; Ted Levine, as a lawman of antic spirit; and Nick Cave, composer of the film's score (with Warren Ellis) and screenwriter of the Aussie "Western" The Proposition, suddenly towering over a late scene to perform the folk song that set the terms for the book and movie's title.

Still, the real costar is Roger Deakins, probably the finest cinematographer at work today. The landscapes of the movie (mostly in Alberta and Manitoba) will linger in the memory as long as the distinctive faces, and we seem to feel the sting of its snows on our cheeks. Interior scenes are equally persuasive. Few West! erns have conveyed so tangibly the bleakness and austerity of ! the spac es people of the frontier called home, and sought in vain to warm with human spirit. --Richard T. Jameson

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