Review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) by Smitha. — 29 Feb 2008

I am a connoisseur of cinematic detail. Especially in historical movies that I have a fair knowledge of the times they depict. And I am often absolutely, verbally, anal. I drive my wife nuts on this but to me even a background set filled with accurate prosaic items is cause for a private gasp of wonder for me.

Hey--someone connected with the movie I am watching actually CARED about attempting to render history halfway realistically! Someone once said that the past is another country: "They do things differently there.

" Kudos to the screenwriter and the others who cooperated on this masterpiece. The dialog and diction (supported by the splendid cinematography!) transported me back to the late 1800s. The film seemed to me to be about as linguistically/historically perfect as it could possibly be.

If the speech was not exactly "factually correct," it nevertheless rang profoundly true. These old flesh and blood American characters probably and actually talked like this--a mixture of transplanted British courtliness and low-down--often obscene--countrified slang.

The clothing was right there along with everything else. I don't believe I will ever look at Kirk Douglas or John Wayne with their smart and silk perfectly-knotted neckerchiefs below their ostentatious Stepsons the same way again.

A word or two on the film's cinematography.... This is the first time I have seen color photography that evoked both the beauty of western landscape, the stark, papered-over gritty poverty of frontier life and the "blurred-at-the-edges" sepia daguerreotyped glass plate images of a century ago.

This movie was an outstanding experience for my wife and I.