But after killing James, Robert Ford had a rare opportunity not given to all assassins- going free and making money off his actions. Ford took what he could get and ran, capitalizing on the public's craving to see how the murder happened, and, not unlike his victim, parlayed his infamy into wealth. But even that can only take you so far.
Sam Fuller's first movie, I Shot Jesse James (1949), tells that story with a pretty liberal interpretation of what happened. It's a pretty standard Western, though it's mostly about the aftermath of Robert Ford's shooting of James than of James' life. James, now living in his hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri under the guise of Thomas Howard, was shot in the back of the head by Ford while dusting and straightening a picture on his wall. In I Shot, James is portrayed as a pastoral, quiet man, trying to leave his legacy behind and live a domestic life with his wife and children. Ford, of course, is a coward (see the title of the next movie), shooting his best friend and confidante so he could also leave the James legacy behind and live a quiet life with his fiance. This, I suppose, is a noble goal, especially since James was a cold-blooded killer wanted by the law, but Fuller doesn't hesitate to turn Ford into a crazy unhinged man. He has to wrestle with his conscience following the shooting, and the fame of being the man who killed the most notorious outlaw in the country doesn't mean much when that notorious outlaw happens to be a beloved folk hero.
Fuller fudges the details to create conflict, because hey, it's a cheap 8o minute Western where the most famous character gets shot in the first 10 minutes, you have to pad it with something. In the movie, Ford shoots James so he can earn the reward and move away with his fiance, who happens to have another suitor, a more dignified suitor at that. This rival is none other than Edward O'Kelley, the real-life murderer of Robert Ford, who shot him in the back in Ford's Creede, Colorado tent saloon in 1892. In the movie, O'Kelley is forced to shoot the drunken, deranged Ford, who is driven by jealousy to kill him first. In real life, O'Kelley gave no real motivation following his apprehension; it was suggested that he was driven by the same craving for notoriety as Ford, shooting Jesse James' killer as a quick way to heroism.
Now, the same story was tackled in a movie that was twice as long as I Shot, and my goodness, it's just a better movie all around; even at almost three hours, it's never boring, unlike I Shot. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a beautiful, ethereal film, and a cautionary tale about meeting your idols, or maybe it's a good example of why you should kill them (with all due respect to Sonic Youth, of course). The movie came out in 2007 as part of an odd wave of unconventional Westerns, alongside There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. I think it stands alongside those two as a modern classic.
It's different from I Shot in many ways, first and foremost in that it's actually a great movie, but also because it skews more to the actual story of James' life. Ford isn't driven by jealousy to kill James, he's driven by a craving for fame. He worships the James gang, and wants nothing more than to be part of the group that entertained him as a child. When he finally gains access to James' inner circle, and sees his hero for who he really is, he's taken aback; this is Jesse James? Assassination portrays James as unhinged, driven mad by the man-hunt. When Ford finally shoots him, James accepts it as inevitable. He doesn't give two craps about how the picture is hung, he just wants it to be over. He knows the walls are closing in, knows that the Ford brothers, the two people he could finally trust, have given themselves over to the other side. These motivations may or may not be true, of course, but taking a creative look at what you can't know (what they were thinking) is a lot better and more challenging than taking a creative look at what you do know (the actual course of events).
Both movies include similar details: the shooting, of course, but also that Robert Ford and his brother Charley re-created the assassination on stage for a paying audience in a touring show, a wandering minstrel singing an insulting song right in front of Ford (played in Assassination by Nick Cave, who also wrote the haunting score). But I Shot downplays the Ford brothers' show, making it seem like Robert gave up after the first show because of his conscience; he actually played the role of himself a lot, though it wasn't well received and showed the public how the murder was actually cheap and cowardly.
Why Assassination works so well for me is that it actually makes Jesse James a character in the story of his murder, and it's not at all sympathetic. Brad Pitt (playing James) and Casey Affleck (playing Ford) give incredibly nuanced performances, and the story is complex enough so that the audience isn't forced to choose between the two. Fuller, on the other hand, barely features the outlaw in his movie at all, so that all we know about him is what knowledge we already knew, and thus James' legacy as a righteous bank robber is kept intact. But Jesse James wasn't a good person. There's no evidence he gave his ill-gotten gains to the poor, and his robberies ended with murder and often targeted Union-sympathizers or ex-soldiers. He was a brutal man leading a brutal group of people- one robbery in 1876 saw the gang crack the skull of the cashier and hold a knife to his throat in an attempt to get the combination to the safe; they were unsuccessful, and when the authorities were called and on their way one of the James gang shot the cashier as they made their escape.
This ex-Confederate soldier gets sympathy/praise in the same way ex-Confederates are sympathized with/praised in so many Westerns- he represented a cool, anti-authoritarian position in the lawless West, sticking it to the government trying to hold him down. Unfortunately, the people he represented were Lost Causers living vicariously through outlaws just as evil as they, only bolder and better with a gun. James doesn't deserve his legacy, and I think Assassination gets that.
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