But looking back, the bit of narration that really stuck in my craw was in the final building act–the Fords sick with nervousness and crawling near out of their skins with Jesse all erratic deciding what to do about it all; the outward mood change as suddenly he’s laughing and horsing around again but so very lovely clearly a thoroughly unconvincing surface skim…and then the narrator busts in like someone in the row behind me explaining things to a dimwitted date.
That bit poisoned the well of all the rest for me. It hadn’t bothered me at all before it, and I probably haven’t been fair to everything after. But that piece should’ve been axed, I don’t care how pretty the words were.
I saw this movie yesterday, and it shits all over 3:10 to Yuma. I liked everything about it. I thought that the narration was good because it sets you up for what is about to come. The scenery was gorgeous and that acting was superb. Everytime Jesse gets lied too, you can see it in Brad Pitts eyes that he knows he is being lied too, and is pondering what to do with the guy lying to him.
Another thing I like about the characters is that when Jesse shows up and starts questioning them, they know they are going to die very soon but feel powerless (cowardly) to stop the inevitable except for Bob.
I also like the gun fight scenes where in the heat of the moment and the way those guns were built, they are highly inaccurate and you need to be about five feet from the guy to get a decent shot.
I’m baffled at the Supporting nomination for Affleck, actually. I don’t believe there are hard and fast rules, but under what universe is Affleck’s character supporting while Denzel Washington in Training Day or Sean Penn in Mystic River are leading?
Yeah, the rules are weird, but I think it has to do with how the studios pitch the nominations. I imagine Warner Bros. figured Affleck couldn’t hold up next to the celebrity cachet of the inevitable Best Actor nominations, so they put him down for supporting actor. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they put Brad Pitt down for a Best Actor nod. It’s all politics and popularity contest junk.
The Academy is irrelevant to me anyway, but I totally agree with Steve that Affleck was the lead.
And, yeah, what Supersport said about the gunfight. That was a great bit of intentionally inelegant action choreography. I’m pretty sure the blood and wounds were digital, which makes it all the more remarkable that Dominik renders a blood spatter on the camera lens.
A few years ago wirework was the new hotness. But now it’s sudden, clumsy, violent fumbling. The shootout in Assassination of Jesse James. The bath house scene in Eastern Promise. Even the El Paso street battle in No Country has a bit of that.
which makes it all the more remarkable that Dominik renders a blood spatter on the camera lens.
I’m not sure how I feel about this particular bit(Children of Men had it, somebody else did the same thing but I can’t remember who). It’s showing off CGI skill(and we’ve gotten very, very good at CGI gunshots), but it’s also reminding the audience that there is a camera when it’s not necessary.
It’s sort of like lens flare in video games.
Oh, yeah, you missed an opportunity to credit Greengrass for the sudden brutal fumbling style.
But unlike Children of Men (good call, Hudson/Ben!), Assassination was very liberal with its “this is a camera” tricks. It was constantly playing with focus, blurring the edges of the picture for that old timey stereoscope effect. Children of Men’s claim to blood on the lens was its decision to play the action scenes like a documentary, with a war correspondent camera. A little weird, and it doesn’t fit the narrative like Assassination’s camera tricks, but effective.
How do you figure Greengrass deserves credit for the sudden brutal fumbling style? I guess you could point to the demonstration in Bloody Sunday, but that’s more a matter of that movie’s documentary style. The latter two Bourne movies had very slick choreography, with Trained Killer ™ doing their badassery. They made me think, ‘Ooh, that’s how I want to be in a fist fight!’
The Assassination gunfight and Eastern Promise bath house were something entirely different. They had a sort of clumsy realism that made you think ‘Dang, it would suck to be in a gunfight or a knife fight!’
It’s actually practical effects in both cases getting on the lens, although they may have been digitally sweetened. In CoM it was a contentious issue because of the enormously long take.
Caesarbear, are you saying the blood on the lens in Assassination of Jesse James was practical? Because me and a friend went through that scene frame-by-frame to watch it, and I’d bet good money the wound on Jeremy Renner’s forehead was entirely digital. Why then wouldn’t the blood spatter be?
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’d love to know more about the scene. And there’s no commentary track (grumblemutterspit…).
I guess you could point to the demonstration in Bloody Sunday, but that’s more a matter of that movie’s documentary style.
The fire extinguisher beating of one of the hijackers in United 93 was what I was specifically thinking of.
And the Bourne fights were starring a really competent fighter, but there was a sea-change in philosophy between, e.g., him disarming the cops in Identity vs. the power cord strangulation in Supremacy(no youtube clip).
Actually I don’t know for sure on AoJJbtCRF. I know (through rumor) that Hatch fx didn’t do that scene, but no reason another company couldn’t. I know that it’s not uncommon to have a digital ‘entry’ wound along with a practical spray, so I’m only assuming on that scene.
The acting was great! Casey Affleck was amazing. My skin was crawling every time he was on screen. Even the minor parts were played well. I was struck by how convincing all the lying, and Jesse’s reaction to it, was. They bumble through it, and Jesse knows, and they know he knows, yet they keep on with it…understanding that they’re just digging themselves deeper but they can’t stop. It was great!
Drastic, I disagree with you regarding the narration. I didn’t feel it was heavy-handed at all. I’ll side with you that the actors did a fantastic job of conveying things, but I don’t think the narration was out of place. For me, it added greater depth.
I have yet to watch all of There Will Be Blood, or any of No Country for Old Men, so I can’t compare.
Overall, the narration was great. But it might have been a bit unnecessary in the one scene that Drastic mentions. Didn’t really bother me, though.
The movie starts off really slow and it’s hard keeping track of who these people are and why I should care that someone thinks someone else’s step-mom is hot, but the payoff is definitely worth the buildup.
I finally saw this movie. My main issue with it is that I couldn’t understand what was being said most of the time. People had really strong accents, and I couldn’t understand the lines, which rarely happens in movies, so I was very frustrated by it. Brad Pitt’s Jesse James was extremely understandable one minute, but completely incomprehensible the next. Plus so much of the beginning of the movie kept referring to people by name, when I didn’t really know people’s names yet. So I was also frustrated and confused any time they talked about certain characters going to Kentucky and what-not, since I had no idea who they were talking about.
So yeah, I really disliked the movie. I can’t believe it’s so well reviewed. I guess most people didn’t have a problem understanding the language underneath the accents like I did.
Rock8man, I don’t think you watched this with the right mindset. The reason some people like it so much is that it’s a film that does everything it can to ensure that you fall asleep as soon as possible, giving you the opportunity to dream whatever story you want to watch.
Did you try subtitles? Usually when I encounter dialects I have trouble understanding, I go with subtitles until I get the hang of it. With harder ones like The Wire, I had to watch the first two or three episodes all subbed before I got the hang of it. If you are generally allergic to subtitles, then not only are you missing out on the vast options outside of your language bracket (I know one person that can watch all of the languages I’d need to know for my favorite movies…and he doesn’t watch movies, so it’s fucked up) but you are missing a great tool for movies that are harder to follow. Not that I’m trying to pressure you or anything, but there means of overcoming this that don’t require it to be an altogether different movie.
Your main criticism seems to be that you couldn’t understand the movie on the most basic level, which is to say the language itself and the key elements of narration that follow from it. I don’t see how that leads to disbelief that others who didn’t have that problem might have enjoyed it. By the same token, I have no problem believing that people with different tastes or who, god forbid, expected something more along the lines of 3:10 to Yuma would not enjoy it. It’s very specifically not a movie that seeks to cater to all tastes.
I enjoyed it for the same reason that I enjoy Bulgakov writing the death of Christ from Pontius Pilate’s perspective: when done subtly, making a major historical figure a character foil for a lesser or maligned one is inherently compelling to me.
Hmmm. Subtitles. I have to admit, that had not occurred to me. That’s actually a very good idea LK. Thanks.
As for the good points of the movie: I had no idea that Robert Ford was played by Casey Affleck until I read this thread after watching the movie. That’s amazing. I thought it was some new brilliant unknown actor that I hadn’t seen before. I also enjoyed the end of the movie quite a bit. By the end, I wasn’t confused about names, and who was who, because it wasn’t important anymore (they were nearly all dead or arrested).
Apart from not catering to certain audiences though, I think the movie could have been a lot clearer in it’s first half about who was going where and doing what. I wish I knew exactly who was who’s cousin or relation, and understood the different relationships between the characters. Like the character of Liddle, for example. He was a ladies man, and had a way with words. Who was he to Jesse? Just a friend? Just someone who rode with him on the train robbery in the beginning? Had they done previous jobs before? Was he blood relation to the Fords?
Maybe this is all my fault. Maybe all those relationships were made clear, if only I’d been watching with subtitles on.
I wouldn’t say it’s a question of blame, it’s that it seems you’re watching the movie as if it were a conventionally scripted whodunit or something. I was able to enjoy it because I’ve learned over time that some movies you need to sweat details and others you don’t. It’s not something that has a right answer, of course, it’s just important that you find a level of engagement that works for your tastes. In my case, I actually tend to favor movies like this, based around impressions and broader feelings rather than specific events and details. Although, as Tom notes, that does not mean that you completely throw out the baby with the bathwater and miss the little pieces that tie a whole scene together.
Oh I agree wholeheartedly with that concept. That’s precisely why I didn’t sweat it at first when I couldn’t understand what the actors were saying, and who they were referring to by name. I just chalked it up to being a movie where I didn’t need to sweat the details. I figured if they really wanted me to know someone by name, they would have shot scenes so that people’s identities would have been clearer. So I just let it wash over me at first.
It’s only later in the movie when I started getting frustrated because I felt like the way events were unfolding, this was precisely the kind of movie where the only way the first half of the movie would be interesting is if they HAD explained who the names were and who was going where. There wasn’t enough emotional substance in the first half of the movie for it be the kind of movie you’re talking about, where you don’t look too closely. The second half of the movie was more of an emotional, big picture piece, though, and perhaps that’s why I enjoyed it more.
