While taking part in the press junket for the relationship comedy/drama The Last Kiss, the actor who plays Robert Ford in the film - Casey Affleck - provided a few details on The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford movie starring Brad Pitt, Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, and Sam Shepard.
Affleck, who did a lot of research for the part, joked that he’s campaigning for a new title for the film. “I'm wanting it to be called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Misunderstood Robert Ford. He gets a bad rap. He killed somebody who most people, at least at that time, considered to be real bad, bad person. The whole kind of Robin Hood element to [Jesse James’] fame was manufactured by these comic book series’ that people got, mostly in the Northeast. They didn't have anything to do with out there. They didn't really care about the truth of what it was like to live in Missouri at that time, which was known as the robbers' state, and it was really hard. Like the governor had it out for Jesse James so bad because no one wanted to move to that state at a certain point because there were all these people living out there that were still fighting the Civil War 10 years after it was over and making it like a kind of lawless, horrible place to live. The state was suffering so they really wanted Jesse captured or dead. They put a lot of pressure on Ford to do it because he was close to him.”
Jesse James and Robert Ford were friends and in fact Ford was actually a member of the James Gang for a while. “He was a member of James gang right when it was all falling apart. Jesse James was pretty old. He'd done most of his famous robberies — Northfield bank robbery — he'd done a lot so all that was kind of behind him. I think he felt that he was at the end of life. The gang fell apart right when I met him, kind of, which is one reason I became so close to him. I was young, I idolized him, and he was flattered by that. He wanted somebody close to him that made him feel that way about himself, so it kind of became just me - Robert Ford - and Jesse James. They were together alone for a lot of time, traveling around.”
Affleck believes the film is an honest account of Ford’s life before and after he shot Jesse James. “I think it takes a pretty honest look at who he was. It paints a pretty realistic portrait of Robert Ford, if I may say so myself, by showing him to be kind of young and naïve and taken advantage of - and a murderer. But nonetheless, also somebody who I think you can relate to and understand why he did what he did. I mean he became…right after he killed Jesse James, he went on and did a stage show where he traveled around the country, did 800 performances, re-enacting the murder of Jesse James.”
Immediately after the shooting, Ford was considered a hero for taking down one of the biggest outlaws of the era. “He was considered a hero for a good long while, and then the mood kind of shifted in the country and he became known as a coward,” explained Affleck. “There was a song that was written about him and that didn't help. Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated and that left a bad taste in people's mouths. Just the word alone, you know? But he was a hero for a while.”
It didn't help Ford's reputation that he shot Jesse James in the back. “He did. He shot him in the back. He was adjusting a picture of a famous horse at the time. It was hanging over his fireplace but he also took all his guns, which was something he was known to never, ever do, and a lot of people said he knew it was coming. He knew that his gang had fallen apart. He was old, he'd been shot a few times, his body was kind of falling apart, and people think that he wanted it to end that way.”
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Warner Bros Pictures' The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford hits theaters in 2007.
