He regretted neither his robberies nor the 17 murders that he laid claim to.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Fordis not a typical Western.
Andrew Dominiks direction has more in common with Terrence Malick than John Ford.
Credit: Everett Collection
(But even Malick told Dominik it was too slow.)
Theres only one major set piece, a tense train robbery just 15 minutes into its two-and-a-half-hour runtime.
Casey Afflecks Bob Ford makes the Oscar nine years in his future feel like an inevitability.
Everett Collection
Domestic receipts totaled $3.9 million, a figure barely helped by $11.1 million earned in foreign markets.
Industry reports at the time would consider a well-regarded misfire on the part of Warner Bros.
It was one of Deakins two nominations that year, along withNo Country for Old Men.
Everett Collection
He ultimately lost to Robert Elswit forThere Will Be Blood.
The death of the Western.
An art film director left unchecked.
A star straining for importance.
But those involved withThe Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Fordhad a different perspective.
Ross sat on the floor and read through the script.
I had a horrible headache, Ross recalls.
I think that actually helped the performance.
It was raining, as it rarely does in L.A., and it made things kind of gloomy.
The early days of the edit, however, didnt exactly bear signs of the trouble ahead.
Ross recalled the first dailies rolling in.
It was always the feeling of, We really like this.
I wonder if anyone else is going to?'
Listening to Ross tales from the edit bay ofJesse Jamesis eerily like hearing from the film itself.
Warners just treated it so badly and never understood what they had, Ross says.
I dont know what they were expecting.
When the movie ended, he overheard them speaking outside the theater.
I specifically remember one of them saying, What we really need is more shots of slow-moving clouds.
And they both laughed, he says.
They said that right in front of me.
They dont care who I was.
I just remember thinking, Wow, nobody gets it.'
It wasnt any good.
Through all of this, Ross narration remained.
The voice, so ingrained in Dominiks head through constant rewatching, became the directors personal choice.
Andrew just couldnt hear anything else.
The plan from the beginning, however, had been to replace Ross voice with a better-known one.
(Think Morgan Freeman or Martin Sheen.)
I always called it the FUWB movie, and I was part of that.
It was like, F you.
Im using this nobody.'
Ultimately, Ross voice won out, but he didnt know for sure until late in the process.
He was forced to leave the production after 19 months when another job presented itself.
I got a phone call, and it was one of the assistants saying, Hey, man.
It looks like its going to be you,' Ross says.
I remember I was in the parking lot, and I was just like, Holy sh.
The role led to other work.
Today, Ross works primarily as a full-fledged editor for film and TV, includingNew Girlwith Zooey Deschanel.
Im just the narrator.
And yet still, the uniqueness of the movie and the injustice of its release sticks with him.
I understand why it scared Warner Bros, he says.
I just dont understand the point of dumping it.
Why not put it out there and see what happens?
Then you’ve got the option to say to yourself, See?
I told you it wouldnt work.'
