The first thing you notice about Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is how drop-dead gorgeous it is. A wheatfield glows in the twilight; light dapples through an alder wood, granting halos to two-bit thugs; a grassfire splits the night, like an open gateway to the netherworld. Jesse James stands on its brink, staring into it, as if he knows he’s going to be there soon.

Both Assassination and No Country for Old Men were shot by Roger Deakins, and both were nominated for a 2007 Academy Award. Why he didn’t win for one of them is beyond me. Here are some shots from the picture’s train robbery sequence that illustrates his genius.

Jesse James’ boys have piled timber on the tracks; now they await the coming of the train. Jesse’s boot rests on the track, gaging the distance of the train by its feel. Gravel trickles down from the grade, dislodged by the oncoming train:

Cut to Jesse’s face, floating ghost-like in the dark:

Then a pan to an entirely dark frame, and the train rounds the corner, the tracks reflect the light, the trees frame the light like a cathedral window. It’s monochrome at first, then color begins to creep into the leaves on the trees.

Cut to the train moving through the wood . . . we cannot see the train yet, it is only a light accompanied by a god-awful noise, a clanking and rumbling and hissing, like a subterranean serpent or dragon invading the dark forest.

Now the P.O.V. switches to the train, and its lights light illuminate the woods and the waiting outlaws, bright light alternating with black bars, the train-window posts. Eyes glare out of hoods like some unblinking nightmare — the monsters are in the woods.

Cut to the tracks, and we can tell now that it’s an oncoming train:

Then a strange thing happens . . . the train rams the car the camera is on, and we are carried along for a time with the train, not changing perspective. And the thing is that we see the camera bump, and we hear it as well . . . and, the way films are made, with post-production sound design and all, we know it is intentional on the part of the filmmakers. Is it deliberately to take us out of the story, to remind us that it’s a movie about Jesse James? Earlier in the film, in the prologue, something similar happens: the narrator is describing the known characteristics of Jesse James, and of course we see that it’s Brad Pitt. At one point, the narrator says “He also had a condition that was referred to as granulated eyelids, and it caused him to blink more than usual.” And as he says it, the camera rests on Pitt and he doesn’t blink once. In that moment, do the filmmakers acknowledge that “Ok, it’s not really Jesse James, you know . . .” [In every film with a well-known actor like Pitt, there is an interaction -- better, a transaction -- between who we think he is in "real life", who he has played in the past, and the present character. This is akin to intertextuality in (written) text analysis, and the smart director will use it rather than fight it. Dominik, I think, is using it.]

Jesse/Brad walks onto the tracks, and climbs onto the barrier his men have erected. He is silhouetted in the oncoming headlight.

And we cut to the wheels, throwing off sparks, as the train brakes, then it’s the train’s P.O.V. again, and we see the outlaws through the sparks, as if fresh from the fires of Hell.

Cut back to Jesse, who is lost in the glare and steam. He seems small in comparison to the behemoth that bearing down upon him; if we didn’t know the story — if we didn’t know it was Brad Pitt – we might think it would smash into him.

And then, cut to the stopped train, its body invisible against the dark, its lighted windows portals onto a certain civilization. Outside those windows, in the dark, wild things gather. Passengers stare out, frozen, as the wilderness prepares to engulf them. The robbery can now commence.

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