The Assassination Of Jesse James

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a western film. The film has both positive and negative components that make it an uneasy viewing, due to immoral behaviours and sense of unhinged characteristics. The director Andrew Dominik has great control in creating beautiful pictures throughout the film. Dominik gives the best understanding of Jesse James possible so that we, as viewers, are able to become better acquainted (more familiar) with Jesse’s character.

In the scene (Blue Cut Robbery) where Frank and Jesse James have collated a bunch of “amateur robbers and petty thieves” to commit the Blue Cut train robbery the filmmaker, Andrew Dominik, portrays the idea that being an outlaw is being a bully. This scene is significant

This is clear because Robert idolises Jesse and has done since he was a young boy but for all the wrong reasons. This film clearly indicates that as humans we are easily sucked into the lives of others if we believe they are better off than ourselves. This message is shown through Robert unhealthily obsessing over Jesse, which is clearly seen within the scene “Imagining Himself.” The Blue cut robbery scene demonstrates Jesse’s bully like, yet insecure, characteristics. The scene helps us as viewers to understand Jesse’s character, we see that Jesse is not a nice person. Due to the fact that Jesse is aware that what he does is wrong, yet he still continues to carry out similar actions. Killing people for no reason, because he wants something or simply because he feels threatened by them is purely selfish. Due to Jesse’s selfish actions as viewers we dislike his character. Although he does show remorse for the actions he has carried out. The internal battle that Jesse has about his actions show the beginning of his emotional breakdown. Throughout the film as we observe Jesse’s breakdown, as viewers we begin to feel sorry for him but not enough to see him any differently than being a bad person. The style that Dominik used within the blue cut robbery scene had dull, dark and gloomy connotations. This was a large contrast with the other scene as the colours were a lot brighter and the overall scene had a sepia tone. The difference helped to establish that blue cut robbery was a scene full of bad deeds whereas when Robert is imagining himself as Jesse the scene portrays Roberts innocence to the real life of Jesse James. Within imagining himself when Robert fabricates Jesse as viewers we know that Jesse is a bad person and does not deserve to be