In Contention

Tag: Andrew Dominik

  • Could two potentially great film scores get the AMPAS shaft this year?

    It’s a debate that never gets old regarding the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When is it going to clean house regarding shady rules that seem to fly in the face of what the organization sets out to do each and every year: honor the best in cinematic achievement?

    The foreign film committee had a major shakeup last year, and promises of attention were made, but it’s high time the same happened with the musicians. One of the rules seems poised to become a serious talking point later this season, however.

    Within Rule 16B of the Academy’s eligibility guidelines — launched into infamy last year when the caca hit the fan regarding Jonny Greenwood’s “There Will Be Blood” score — you’ll find the key language:

    Only the principal composer(s) or songwriter(s) responsible for the conception and execution of the work as a whole shall be eligible for an award. This expressly excludes from eligibility…scores assembled from the music of more than one composer.

    Specifically, it’s Rule 16B-5f. And it will likely affect two promising works of film music composition this year.

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  • REVIEW: “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (****)

    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert FordIn 1983, author Ron Hansen crafted a novel that ought to be considered mandatory reading for anyone fancying himself or herself attracted to the western as a genre and as a conveyor of essential truth. A Shakespearean account of betrayal in the old west, Hansen’s masterful sketches revealed deep and vibrant characters that transcended the nickel-book mythology into which they inevitably found themselves woven.

    Twenty-four years later, filmmaker Andrew Dominik has accomplished a visual telling of that story as close to cinematic perfection as you could hope for. At the risk of sensationalism, I would call “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” the most accomplished work of moving imagery committed to film in nearly a decade. It is a staggering piece of true cinematic art.

    The tale is as simple as it is complex, a trait shared by the greatest of western storytelling. Jesse James (Brad Pitt), the infamous outlaw of old, found himself the subject of obsession, fascination and idolatry by the young and ambitious Robert Ford (Casey Affleck). A yearning to touch greatness, or even reside in similar territory, drove Ford to seek out acceptance amongst James and his gang of outlaws in the waning years of the 19th century. A lethal combination of angst, envy, hubris and government sanctioning brought Ford to a place on April 3, 1882 where firing a bullet into the back of James’ skull seemed the logical course of action. And so it was.

    Dominik and director of photography Roger Deakins have framed the legend of James in some instances by blurring the outer edges of the frame. Perhaps the intention is to convey a legend we know little about, given the cloud of mythology that surrounds actuality. But there are depths of reality here that speak to some fairly grandiose truths, and that, I think, is what Dominik is driving at.

    With all the sensationalized accounts, all of the larger-than-life depiction, there is true poetry in the life and death of the outlaw. And there is true poetry in his assassin’s regret. Myth is born out of realism, and Andrew Dominik, an Australian, seems to understand the American western better than any contemporary, and many who paved the way before him.

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