How Eco-Horror Movies Portray Energy Crisis, Pollution and Climate Change 0 2500

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This is a guest post by regular contributor Maria Ramos.

More often than not movies reflect interests and fears of the current times back at us, either directly or veiled in metaphor. This is especially true in the past few decades, as humanity as a whole has started to become more aware of our influence on the environment and this has consistently been echoed back to us on screen.

In the 1950s, the threat was nuclear weapons and its hazardous effects. Today, the threat is climate change, particularly since we’ve become more aware of the global troubles that will ensue should we allow current consumption of fossil fuels to run rampant. However, no matter what the current danger, the silver screen has become an interesting funhouse mirror to amplify, distort, and reflect them, making a statement all its own.

After the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, the world became aware of the hazard of both large-scale destruction and the wrath of nuclear fallout. Both Japan and the United States released nuclear creature-features in 1954, Godzilla and Them!, though their approaches reflected each country’s point of view.

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The Godzilla franchise may have become known for its camp nature, but initially it was a metaphor for a godlike force of destruction, with director Ishiro Honda using scenes that purposefully evoked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Them!, on the other hand, viewed its gigantic ants as an unintended side product of mankind’s meddling who turned about and attacked the very forces who had created them.

The 1970s and 1980s brought increased awareness of the effects of pollution and toxic waste into the public eye, and so environmental horror changed as well. 1984’s C.H.U.D. served double-duty as a warning against both toxic waste pollution and 1980s corporate greed that led to the dumping of the waste into the sewers. In the 2000s, water pollution became the pollution du jour to fear, and films like 2012’s The Bay were caused not by toxic waste, but by agricultural runoff.

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Found footage eco-horror movie “The Bay”

With the advent of rapid global travel and high populations, epidemics are another on-screen threat that Hollywood has not shied away from. 2002’s 28 Days Later and 2013’s World War Z couched their epidemic through the ever popular zombie metaphor, while 2007’s I am Legend displayed its epidemic in more of a vampire variety. 2012’s The Crazies combined a few issues, with a polluted water supply infecting a town’s population with a virus that sent its residents into a frenzy.

Climate change issues of today have been especially well represented lately in environmental horror. This category is particularly topical given recent issues like the 2015 Paris Agreement. With a global increase of 80 percent between 1970 and 2004 alone in carbon dioxide, according to Direct Energy, the situations proposed in the following films seem less and less outlandish. 2004’s The Day After Tomorrow took a lot of flack for being an overblown special-effects fest, but as the general public has become more familiar with terms like “superstorm,” it has begun to seem less far-fetched than it did a decade ago. 2006’s The Last Winter, while featuring a ghost-heavy plot, also centered around the idea of destructive drilling practices being largely at fault.

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The effects of climate change in disasterbuster The Day After Tomorrow.

Increasing temperatures are a major factor in the destruction at the heart of 2009’s 2012 – though the temperature is of the Earth’s core and not the atmosphere and oceans, such as we are seeing today. And in 2014’s Into the Storm, shifting weather patterns due to atmospheric warming causes unprecedented tornado activity, similar to activity that has been seen in recent months.

People are influenced by the media that they consume, even something as seemingly diverting as horror movies. With the combination of awareness of issues as plot points in environmental horror and visibility in the news, the possibility of the public taking these issues seriously may become much more likely. If it is real enough to fear onscreen, it is real enough to fear in real life – and real enough to do something about.

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List: 20 Underrated & Overlooked 21st Century Horror Movies 1 5944

I love horror movies. Ever since I was probably way too young to be watching them, I have delighted in the heightened sense of fearful thrills that they deliver, whether it’s bumps in the night (The Haunting, The Others et al.) or full-on terror (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Evil Dead).

Despite some of the best horrors of all time being found decades ago, I still think the last 17 years have provided some truly examples of the genre. And often this is not the highest grossing and/or most well-known but those hidden and underrated gems that sneak under the radar for all but the most ardant of the genre fans.

I’ve compiled a big list of my favourites, in no particular order. Enjoy!

Pulse (2001)

10 Alternative Halloween Movie Choices - Pulse (Kairo)

Possibly my favourite horror movie of the century thus far comes from Japan, a country that does the genre like no other. It follows a group of students who are investigating a series of mysterious and baffling suicides that appear to have been caused by a website that promises its visitors a chance to speak to the dead. It can be viewed as a shrewd social commentary on technology and the way the internet affects everyone’s lives but also enjoyed purely as a straightforward horror experience. It has a deeply unnerving atmosphere about it, avoiding cheap jump and gory scares for something far more creepily insidious.

Pontypool (2008)

10 Alternative Halloween Movie Choices - Pontypool

This Canadian horror thriller sadly flew under the radar for most people but it’s one of the most unusual and unique horrors to come out this century thus far. It centres on a group of workers at a radio station in quiet, wintery Ontario town. One particularly cold morning a mysterious virus descends upon the place, causing the victims to turn into babbling zombie-like versions of their former selves. This darkly funny, memorably surreal film presents the “zombies” in a unique way which I won’t spoil here and features amazing sound design to bring the horrific situation to life.

The House of the Devil (2009)

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Indie horror maestro Ti West (The Innkeepers) directs this Rosemary’s Baby-esque tale of a babysitter who accepts a late night job from a mysterious yet perfectly nice stranger (Tom Noonan). At first everything seems normal but she slowly realises something isn’t right in that big house. It’s a cool throwback to horrors of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s – including being shot in that grainy old style – eerily brooding with atmosphere and slow-building towards a nerve-shredding finale.

Visitor Q (2001)

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Prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) proves why he’s one of the most striking filmmaking talents around with this tale of a disturbed and perverted family who are visited by a mysterious stranger who seems to bring some sort of harmony with him. This is not for the easily offended as there are moments that are deeply troubling, if not downright reprehensible. But it makes for a truly unforgettable experience that’s tough to shake from your mind.

Switchblade Romance (2003)

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A firm member of the “New French Extreme” wave of films, this follows a young woman who goes to stay with her friend at her father’s remote farmhouse. The first night they are brutally attacked by a mysterious stranger. There’s a reason the film was known as High Tension in some markets because it provides for some serious edge of your seat viewing accompanied by some wince-inducing gore. It’s unfortunately let down by a stupid, plot hole-laden ending but for the most part it’s an excellent watch.

May (2002)

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From director Lucky McKee (The Woman, All Cheerleaders Must Die) comes this unnerving tale of a lonely young woman who tries her best to connect with people following a traumatic childhood. Anchored by a terrifically creepy central performance by Angela Bettis, it’s a wonderfully strange horror that keeps you on your toes and delights in providing moments of real horror shock value.

Grave Encounters (2010)

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A bunch of good looking young people decide to stay the night in an abandoned insane asylum in the hopes of capturing some spooky footage for their Most Haunted show. Blah blah blah, we’ve seen this type of thing a million times before. But this particular found footage horror flick actually defies expectations by not only doing something interesting with the in-camera style of shooting and the “things going bump in the night” type of horror but is, most importantly, genuinely scary.

Dumplings (2004)

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Raising disgust in horror a new, strange level is this Hong Kong shocker that started out as a short film in anthology Three… Extremes. Without spoiling the gag-inducing surprise, it follows an ageing TV actress who, seeking something that will return her youthful looks, visits an enigmatic chef whose dumpling recipe has a special ingredient. Don’t watch this one with a full stomach!

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)

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What if those evil, backwards, killer hicks you see in horror movies all the time were just a victim of circumstance and unfair negative assumptions? That’s the brilliant concept behind this hilarious horror comedy, which follows a couple of friends (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) who are vacationing in their mountain cabin when they happen across a group of kids who keep being killed off around them. It’s ultimately more of a comedy than a horror – and what a hilarious one it is – but there are some awesomely gruesome moments to be found, too.

Session 9 (2001)

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One of the best horror movies that few people have ever heard of, this follows an asbestos cleaning crew (including David Caruso and Peter Mullan) as they work a job at an abandoned mental institution which has a horrific backstory that seems to be coming back to haunt them. Directed by Brad Anderson (The Machinist), this is watch-through-your-fingers creepy, using realistic scares and palpable atmosphere to achieve its horror goals.

Rigor Mortis (2013)

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Who says a horror movie has to just play within that genre? This audacious Hong Kong debut from singer-turned-director Juno Mak hearkens back to the vampire flicks made in the ’80s, namely the long-running Mr. Vampire series. The meta plot follows a formerly successful star of that series, Chin Siu-ho, who becomes depressed and suicidal after his wife leaves him and goes to stay at a rundown apartment building that’s actually inhabited by supernatural creatures, ghost hunters and the souls of the undead who co-exist with the neighbours. Creepy horror, thrilling crime, dark comedy, crazy and unique CGI… it’s all in there and more.

Inside (2007)

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Another of the celebrated “New French Extremity” films, this insanely gory horror follows a heavily pregnant young woman who is targeted and attacked in her own home by an scorned older woman who is clearly after her baby. Definitely not one for the faint-hearted, you’ll need a strong stomach for what is an extremely graphic but seat-clawingly tense horror experience.

Eden Lake (2008)

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Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly play a young couple who decide to have a relaxing weekend at the reclusive Eden Lake. When they confront a group of disruptive youths (one of whom played by rising star Jack O’Connell), their getaway turns nightmarish as the group start to terrorize the couple. It’s so effective because it feels scarily real throughout; there are no ghosts or demons to be found here but rather just human beings being nasty and brutal.

Them (2006)

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This very scary French horror (known as “Ils” in its native language) follows a young couple who get terrorized by a group of hooded strangers at their secluded farmhouse. It works so well because the situation feels terrifyingly believable, brilliantly tapping into that basic fear of intruders trying to get into your home at night and hurt you. The jaw-dropping ending only adds to why it’s so unnerving.

Thirst (2009)

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Celebrated South Korean director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker) puts his definitive mark on the vampire movie with this story of a priest (Korean superstar Song Kang-ho) who is turned into a vampire following a failed medical experiment and is forced to abandon his priestly calling in order to feed on blood. Beloved by vampire movie and international cinema aficianados, it unfortunately remains a bit lesser known in the wider field. It’s a visually striking film, dripping with brooding, atmospheric tension and never afraid to show the horrors of vampirism or the classic sensuality that goes with it.

Frozen (2010)

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Definitely not to be confused with the animated Disney musical, this one has the simple premise of a group of three friends who get stuck up in ski left at a resort just as the park closes. It might seem boring just watching people stuck in one place for the whole movie but director Adam Green wrings every bit of tension out of the situation, chucking in shocks and tense “what would I do?” situations to rival the best of ’em.

Ritual (2012)

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Sometimes it’s best to go into a horror film knowing as little about the plot as possible. Such is the case with Ritual, a cracking Indonesian horror from director Joko Anwar. In basic terms it’s about a man who mysteriously wakes up buried alive in the woods, with no idea who he is, how he got there or why. He then goes on a search for answers, eventually finding himself struggling to escape the clutches of a mysterious assailant. Its best to leave it there as it provides a chilling, mystery-filled ride full of twists and turns and with an absolute killer ending.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

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This terrific teen horror follows a couple of death-obsessed high schoolers and outcasts in their suburban neighbourhood whose morbidity becomes all too real when one of them gets bitten by a werewolf. As befits a lot of the best horrors, it uses the surface level werewolf story to examine universally relatable themes of puberty and growing up in a world that doesn’t accept being different.

Trick ‘r Treat (2007)

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This wonderful love letter to the Halloween season tell its story in four segments – including a high school teacher with a secret life as a serial killer, a college virgin looking to meet “the one,” a legend about school bus tragedy and a crotchety old man who hates the holiday – each interweaving with one another on All Hallow’s Eve. Filled with chilling, blood-soaked surprises and in-jokes for horror fans, few movies exemplify that spookiest of holidays as much as this one.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

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This hugely under-seen meta horror follows a wannabe serial killer in training who takes his inspiration from legendary horror killers like Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees. It’s chalk full of in-jokes and nods to horrors of years past – for instance, that Leslie has to do lots of cardio so he can keep up with his victims while making it look like he’s just walking – using a faux documentary style at first before turning into a scary full-on slasher.

That’s it for our list. Have you seen any of these movies? Can you think of any other underrated/lesser known gems you want people to seek out? Comment below!

Why I Love: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 0 5400

Why I Love is a new regular essay feature on the site in which I explore films that have become firm favourites, looking at why they have stuck with me in particular and what I think makes them so special. Warning: There will be full-on spoilers for the films discussed.

I first saw director Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford on a Friday afternoon back in October 2007. It was a year especially packed with quality cinema, two of which exist in the same Western realm as this film: Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and the Coen bros’ No Country for Old Men. All three films received huge critical acclaim and went on to Oscar status. But while those other two films remain masterful pieces of cinema, each grandiose and penetrating in their own ways, The Assassination of Jesse James, based on the book of the same name by Robert Hanson about (roughly) the last year in the life of America’s most notorious Western outlaw, is the one that has most gotten under my skin and has worked its way into my list of favourite films ever made.

When I walked out in awe of that afternoon showing a decade ago, I knew I had seen something special. Something about the mood of the film, the atmosphere of longing and regret and beauty set against violence got to me in a way few other films have. The word masterpiece gets thrown around a lot, so much that it has begun to lose its weight and transformed into mere hyperbole, but I truly believe Dominik’s late-19th century set Western to earn that label.

The Assassination of Jesse James is a gorgeous piece of work, absolutely stunning on a technical level, with visuals and sound marrying beautifully to create a hypnotic atmosphere that lulls us through the narrative’s purposefully languid pace; for me I welcome to the chance to just be with a film for however long it takes, in this case a fairly hefty two and a half-plus hours. Evoking the early work of Terrence Malick, in particular Days of Heaven, the resplendent cinematography by perhaps the greatest living cinematographer, Roger Deakins, paints this potentially cold world of violent train robberies, celebrity obsession and ultimate disillusionment with sumptuous contradictory blues and oranges, each frame a fitting prospect to be framed on a wall in its own right. Its visual style is eye-catching but never in a obtrusive way, showcasing woozy imagery often blurred at the edges – Deakins actually created lenses specifically for the film – to create the effect of a dream or as if we’re witnessing the memory of something that happened a long, long time ago. It’s often accompanied by narration, the deep but warm tones of voice-over artist Hugh Ross functioning as a historical storyteller telling tales around a campfire.

The sheer mastery of Deakins’ cinematography is exemplified in the train robbery scene that occurs not long into the film. Jesse (Brad Pitt, in a career best performance), his big brother Frank (portrayed by the late-great Sam Shepard) and a “gang of petty thieves and country rubes culled from the local hillsides” prepare for the arrival of a train filled with passengers and the potential for a $100,000 score. The scene is shrouded in near-darkness, Jesse lying with his ear pressed on the tracks waiting for the rumble of the train. And then it appears from out of the darkness. It grinds to a halt to avoid the obstruction Jesse has set up, the light from the front illuminating the gang and Jesse in particular as he stands aloft. Smoke billows out and, in a shot that Deakins himself has remarked as one of his finest career moments, Jesse walks through the smoke with his face covered and two guns held out. No matter how many times I see it, that moment always gives me goosebumps.

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Music is a crucial ingredient in what makes the film so effective. Composed by stalwart collaborators Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – who also created the music for the likes of The Proposition, The Road, Hell or High Water and this year’s Wind River – the soundscape is at once epic and intimate, grand and tender, seeming to perfectly encapsulate whatever scene it’s accompanying. There’s a timeless quality to it, both yearning for the period setting of the film and yet hauntingly relevant when watching it today. It also manages to be both eclectic – for example the tinkling sounds of “Song for Jesse” standing in stark contrast to the sorrowful piano strikes and mournful elongated violins of “What Must Be Done” – and yet exquisitely of a piece. I have listened to it countless times independently from the film and never get tired of it.

The film has a perfectly assembled cast of wonderful actors, from Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck at the core of the tale and an array of peerless modern character actors manoeuvred around the story like chess pieces, from Jeremy Renner and Sam Rockwell to Garret Dillahunt and Paul Schneider. It’s a film that gives greater shades of depth than you might expect from the genre to its supporting characters, drawing more specifically defined lines that take them beyond the typical archetypes. You feel like you know this ragtag group of outlaws as they shoot the shit around the campfire before a job or when they eventually face the wrath of Jesse’s suspicion that they might have turned on him.

Take Dillahunt for example, who plays Ed Miller, the most soft spoken and nervous of the gang. When Jesse heads out to visit him at his humble farm, he is petrified that the famous outlaw might be there to kill him despite Jesse just “happening by.” The look of desperation, fear and sadness mixed together in Dillahunt’s eyes at that moment is heartbreaking and you get this feeling that, one way or another, he’s not leaving Jesse’s company alive. Sure enough we find out later on, via a night-time chat with Robert’s increasingly fearful brother Charley (Sam Rockwell), Jesse lured Ed away from his home on a promise of dinner only to shoot him in the back of the head in the dead of night. The film pays attention to those who support the titular duo in a way that makes for hugely satisfying viewing again and again.

Casting Pitt, one of the most famous celebrities in the world as America’s most famous outlaw and arguably the first ever celebrity in the modern sense, was a stroke of genius. For my money this is the crowning glory performance of Pitt’s career thus far, as commanding of the screen with a silent, soulful stare sitting in his rocking chair as he is in volatile outbursts as he becomes more and more paranoid that his closest friends have betrayed him. It makes us understand this man for who he was, a puzzle of a man with often confounding conflicting behaviour, the potential to be extremely hostile but also gentle when it’s called for, proud of his so-called accomplishments of robberies “and the seventeen murders that he laid claim to” but contemplative “of that man that’s gone so wrong.” He loves his kids but they don’t even know his name. Undoubtedly the film makes us understand that Jesse James the legend and Jesse James the man are two very different prospects.

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Copyright Warner Bros. Pictures.

Affleck (who received a more than deserved Oscar nomination for his performance) is absolutely fascinating as the so-called cowardly 19-year-old Robert Ford. He’s antsy and maybe even a little unsettling throughout but also measured in how he acts around people, putting on a façade for a man he has held up like a god since childhood. “Many’s the night I stayed up with my eyes open and my mouth open just readin’ about your escapades,” he excitedly relays to Jesse in one scene as the two sit together on a porch smoking cigars. “It’s all lies, you know,” Jesse retorts. There’s a little pause in which we can see the disappointment in Bob’s eyes before he reverts back behind that smokescreen of grown-up coolness cultivated to feel part of the gang, to hide his immaturity and to function as someone Jesse can count on moving forward.

The Assassination of Jesse James is about many things: obsession, loneliness, the need to fit in, misplaced infamy and assumptions, the wandering existence of outlaw life on the great American frontier and the idea of moulding your life into something that you think it should be rather than what it ought to be. But above all it’s about the nature of disillusionment, about succumbing bitterly to the idea that what you once held as sacred being unveiled as anything but. It may be the film that most perfectly encapsulates the phrase “you should never meet your heroes.” We can see this in Bob’s always changing or degrading view of Jesse, as if a protective wall of idolization is being knocked down brick by brick. Jesse was everything to Bob as far back as he can remember and would still keep a treasure trove of stories in a tin box under his bed. In one of the film’s pivotal scenes – where as much gets said with stares between the eponymous twosome as spoken dialogue – Jesse visits for a late night dinner at the house where Bob, Charley and the hitherto unseen brother Wilbur (Pat Healy) are staying. With a mix of trying to hide the fact that Bob and Charley were present for the killing of Jesse’s cousin Wood (Jeremy Renner) at the hands of the slimy Dick Liddil (Paul Schneider) and continuing the spirit of merciless teasing about Bob’s obsession with Jesse, he is asked to tell the outlaw about how much they have in common.

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“Well, if you’ll pardon my saying so, I guess it is interesting, the many ways you and I overlap and what not. I mean, you begin with our daddies. Your daddy was a pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church; my daddy was a pastor of a church at Excelsior Springs… You’re the youngest of the three James boys, I’m the youngest of the five Ford boys. Between Charley and me, is another brother, Wilbur here, with six letters in his name; and between Frank and you is another brother, Robert, also with six letters. And my Christian name is Robert, of course. You have blue eyes, I have blue eyes. You’re five feet eight inches tall, I’m five feet eight inches tall… I must’ve had a list as long as your night shirt when I was twelve, but I seem to have lost some curiosities over the years.”

It’s a scene that showcases Bob’s neatly preserved obsession with Jesse and the outlaw’s ensuing curiosity over why the young man is so keen to stick by his side. “Can’t figure it out… do you wanna be like me or do you wanna be me?” Jesse wonders at one point. In a way it’s both. As an audience we are invited to see things from Bob’s viewpoint, at least when it comes to Jesse; we may have heard about him through legends and stories out with the film and are certainly led to expect he’s the insurmountable figure before we start to get to know him. We discover, just like Bob, that “he’s just a human being” the same as everyone else.

It exists as a film intrinsically part of the Western genre; once so ubiquitous in Hollywood but has become a scarcity to be cherished whenever one pops up. But it functions as a much more melancholy Western than usual, taking its time, soaking the experience with haunting atmosphere, less interested in glamourising violence itself as a thrilling piece of spectacle and more in exploring in the motivations behind, the proceeding regrets of, and ramifications for, those that perpetrate it.

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The film’s elongated titled reads like a headline in a newspaper of a bygone era. It spoils, for lack of a better word, the outcome. We know that Jesse James will die by film’s end and Robert Ford is the one who will pull the trigger. But, quite apart from the fact that the outcome is a famous historical fact chronicled many times in various forms throughout the ensuing years, it serves a specific purpose for the drama. From moment one the film is lent an air of anticipation, of sorrowful inevitability. It’s not about the what or even the why but the how. The context. The assassination itself is tragically showcased, Jesse feigning interest in cleaning a dusty picture, spotting Bob’s reflection as he points the gun at his back. Did Jesse allow Bob to kill him? Perhaps he saw a violent death at a young age as being inevitable and Bob being the one to do it would give it more meaning. The events leading up to the assassination are made to matter in a way they might not have otherwise and the aftermath given great dramatic weight.

If we were in any doubt of whose story the film is telling for the first couple of hours, we are in no doubt in the last half hour or so which chronicles what became of Bob and how his killing of his hero – and for the public a much loved heroic scallywag of America’s 19th century history – affected his life. That he would spend the next year making money out of his deadly deed by putting on a stage re-enactment, Bob becoming ever-more swallowed up by regret and bitter resentment of how he’s now viewed by the public, Charley both hardened and weighed down by his own part in the murder. Jumping forward a decade Bob is living a hollow existence, running his own saloon but still feeling the scornful eyes of the public burning a hole in the back of his head whenever he walks by and receiving angry letters for the decision that would define his life. By Bob’s own admission he was too young to see how it would look to people, that he didn’t get the applause he naively expected at the time, “that he missed the man as much as anyone.”

It’s in the film’s final moments that the tragedy of the piece slams home, when a complete stranger in the form of Edward O’Kelley – another admirer of Jesse’s with “nothing beyond a vague longing for glory and a generalized wish for revenge” – steps into the saloon to shoot Bob dead with a shotgun. The film’s ends with a half blurred still shot of Bob just before he’s killed, driving home the irony that despite Bob doing the bidding of the police force in killing Jesse and hoping for applause, he is the one viewed as the coward while the thieving and oftentimes violent Jesse becomes immortalized as a hero. Even Mr. O’Kelley, the narration tells us, would be petitioned for a pardon years later because the public still views Bob as less of a man and not worth living for the act he committed and Jesse considered more of a beloved hero than ever. “Robert Ford would only lay on the floor and look at the ceiling, the light going out of his eyes, before he could find the rights words.”

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It’s a beautiful, haunting ending to a timeless and mesmeric film. I’ve seen it at least two dozen times since it was released and I only find more and more rich details, depth of emotion and aesthetic beauty every time. For the above reasons and more I genuinely believe it to be a high point of modern American cinema. I hope, at least a little, I’ve helped you feel the same way.