The Right Words

Interesting analysis. I figured it meant "I didn't want this." Bob was always obsessed with fame, and yet at the end, couldn't have a great last line like Jesse James. But of course, Jesse only said "Don't that picture look dusty." A throwaway phrase that is now famous. That was the great tragedy of Robert Ford; he thought he could be famous like Jesse, but didn't realize that he had to be Jesse James to be as famous as Jesse James.

I think prior to the assassination, the film you get is the sustained grim reality and coincidentally the more accurate truth (America's love for Jesse James is far more famous than the man himself) of what a deeply unpleasant experience it was like to be around Jesse James. The film completely destroys the hero myth and replaces it with a lot of sinister characters behaving selfishly, beset by infighting. The squabbling, petty violence and disintegration is exactly what happened to Jesse James' gang which was no more than a ragtag mob of glorified criminals long past their best -- And the film really inhabits that notion, so by the end, it presents the relief to see Jesse James dead.

The post-assassination part was so brilliant because it shed light on the real tragedy, that it was only Jesse James the man that died at the hands of Robert Ford; Jesse James the legend, however, got this enormous shot in the arm. Suddenly the facts are immaterial, the reality is immaterial, the truth is immaterial, and all that matters is the popular belief. The whole last 5 minutes is utterly perfect and really makes the film in my book; the dialogue is superb.

I love how it conveys that sort of wistful innocence he had at the time; "I was only 20 then... you know what I expected? Applause...". This was the kid who had spent all his life collecting Jesse James memorabilia and memorizing obscure statistics about his favorite outlaw hero, brought up in a family that prized a sort of brazen macho aggression and violence, when clearly he was a man who had no capacity for and took no pleasure from, either. It was his way to make sense of the violent world: if he murdered the most famous and legendary outlaw in America, he would surely be recognized as an even greater folk hero -- for what could be a more daring feat of bravery than to kill the man himself?

He realizes that's a totally messed up worldview by the end and you get to see what a depressed, isolated life he had lived, that he was born into an unfair world and was never given a chance to fight that.

"My luck's not very good as it is, Marty. I don't think an Opal's gonna change that much." is what you can apply to his whole life: Jesse James would be loved no matter what and he, Robert Ford, would be despised no matter what (this extends prior to the assassination, when he was desperate to be included, to fit in, to be accepted, to feel useful).

"No photographs of his body would be sold in sundry stores. No people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral cortege. No biographies written about him. No children named after him. No one would pay 25 cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in."

Brilliant dialogue. And the final words are the best:

"The shotgun would ignite, and Ella-May would scream; but Robert Ford would only lay on the floor and look at the ceiling - the light going out of his eyes, before he could find the right words"

I love the sullen, near-resigned look that the final shot lingers on: superbly poignant and terrifically chosen. It's a film with a very powerful message on a few different things, and it carries them off wonderfully at the end.




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