Andrew Dominik‘s “The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford” turns ten years old this month, and there’s never a bad time to shine some light on one of the best westerns of contemporary cinema. But any discussion of the terrific film must be paired with a reminder of the uphill battle the director faced in the editing room. Long story short, thinking they had invested in a rootin’ tootin’ shoot-em-up starring hunky Brad Pitt, Warner Bros. were surprised when they got a moody, lengthy film about legacy and guilt. A protracted editing session followed, with Dominik and the studio trying to get a cut that everyone could agree on. In the end, the version we know now was dumped unenthusiastically into cinemas by WB, and even without their support, the film managed two Oscar nominations, for Best Supporting Actor and Best Cinematography.
History has vindicated Dominik’s film, which runs two hours and forty minutes, but at the time, WB wanted something more commercially viable. So among the options they tried was bringing in Steven Spielberg‘s longtime editor Michael Kahn (Oscar winner for “Raiders Of The Lost Ark,” “Schindler’s List,” and “Saving Private Ryan“) who managed to put together a cut at 1 hour and 50 minutes — lopping off nearly an hour from Dominik’s picture. However, things didn’t turn out as planned.
“Honest to God, they paid him a ton of money, and I honestly don’t think anybody even looked at that cut,” first assistant editor Hugh Ross told EW. “It wasn’t any good.”
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Ross has a unique insight into the making of the movie, not only because he saw all the footage and helped wrangle the edit, but also because he narrates the film. Initially, Dominik recorded Ross reading the narration to use as a temp track until he could hire an actor for the job, but wound up liking it so much, that he kept it.
To this day, Ross is a bit baffled that WB didn’t get it, or even try and promote it.
“Warners just treated it so badly and never understood what they had,” he said. “It has always completely perplexed me because the screenplay is a real faith adaptation of [Ron Hansen’s] book, and the movie is exactly the screenplay. I don’t know what they were expecting.”
“I understand why it scared Warner Bros.,” he adds. “I just don’t understand the point of dumping it. Why not put it out there and see what happens? If you say this movie isn’t going to work and then release it in just a couple theaters, yeah, it’s not going to work. If you put it out there for a weekend and nobody sees it or hears about it or knows that it’s there, it’s not going to work. Then you can say to yourself, ‘See? I told you it wouldn’t work.’ ”
Well, it did work, if not commercially, then critically, and its legacy only continues to grow. If you haven’t seen the film yet, now’s the time.