The Glorification of Jesse James by the Amoralist Hollywood Mavens

"Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete." - Jean-Paul Sartre

The other night I finally got around to watching "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". I had it available for a while but put off watching it for two reasons. Firstly, just the title and the graphics told me this was going to be a slow, ponderous and self conscious, self indulgent affair. This proved to be true enough. With two hours and forty minutes of lingering shots of wheat fields beneath zen-master-wannabe voice-overs, slow and ponderous it was indeed. It was also brilliant in some respects. Little cinematographic and art direction elements actually thrilled me now and then and the attention to historical detail was refreshing.

This latter point is perhaps unduly important to me. The film makers' primary job is to entertain, I suppose, but ever since Lawrence of Arabia in the 60's, in which the second most important character, Sherif Ali, was a complete fabrication, I have resented putatively historical dramas fudging the truth. So, it was interesting to learn the reality behind the legend and the folk song I remember from my teen years in a coffeehouse hangout, but not interesting enough to overcome the wish that they'd just get on with it and shoot the bastard.

The second reason I put off watching this film is that I am sick of films glorifying bad people. Don't get me wrong; I am certainly not immune to the fascination everyone seems to have for sociopaths. I watch reruns of the Sopranos with relish, and though I tell myself it is because I regard it as the best show ever produced for television in every respect, I cannot deny the fascination with the outlaw life portrayed, nor that I, like everyone, "root" for Tony, his nephew and the other lovable scum whose real life counterparts are horrific, terrifying and utterly devoid of charm or worth.

I must digress for a moment. The Pentagon maintains a Film Liason Office in Hollywood. Through that office, producers and directors solicit technical advice and assistance and free or low-cost use of military materiel and personnel in the making of their films. This aid and approval is not always forthcoming; it will be withheld when the military finds the script too disparaging. For example, I believe the Dustin Hoffman flic "Outbreak" was denied because of its suggestion that the Army would even consider bombing an American city. Similarly, Oliver Stone's "Platoon", seen as too critical of the Vietnam war, was denied assistance. However, most films are approved and helped, and many, like "Courage Under Fire", enthusiastically so. Why? Because every such film, regardless of the levels of violence, regardless of how horrible, bloody and stomach-turning combat is portrayed as being, is a recruitment poster. The Pentagon apparently fully understands something that escapes the rest of us by and large: What we show on-screen we more than portray; we exalt.

So, back to Jesse James. The man was a murderer. Period. His motivations, his situation, his psychology, simply do not matter to his dead or injured victims, nor should they to us. Like all the other desperado folk heroes - the Ned Kellys, Bonnie and Clydes, Ronald Biggs et al, - James was a man who chose to steal from others and murder them, if necessary, rather than wait on tables, add columns of numbers, or repair plumbing fixtures.

Are such parasites really worthy of interest or attention? Not unless we enjoy abandoning reason and choose to succumb to our atavistic feral instincts. They are losers and only as interesting as we make them. Punish them and forget them. Calling a shit an "anti-hero" and examining the real or conjured minutiae of their mental and physical lives does not remove the flies or the fetor. Flush them down the toilet. It's where they belong.

"Violence isn't always evil. What's evil is the infatuation with violence." - Jim Morrison

 (A two-quote post because both are so appropriate I could not choose one over the other.)