It was a warm and sunny night on 7th Watson. Midterms were finished, and the news was on the television. I wasn’t paying much attention, until the forecast for the weekend cam on. I almost choked on whatever it was that I was eating at the time—the weatherman, with a jeering expression, was gleefully jumping from day to day on his green screen, pointing out that each day was going to be colder than the last. Colder! After Thursday afternoon had been with 100 percent chance of sun, with a 75 percent chance of Frisbee, and 50 percent chance of bocce ball? I refused to believe it.
Until Friday morning came, and it didn’t take me long to realize that the weatherman had been right. The drizzle, rain and cold, which continued all the way until Monday, our one day of break during the term, seemed almost spiteful, as if the weatherman, after a bad day at work, decided to take his anger out on a bunch of college kids who just wanted to enjoy a three-day weekend. But what could I, a simple freshman, do against the powers of a weatherman? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And so, dejected, I collected my picnic basket, threw on a jacket, and went inside to sulk, during the course of which I discovered something interesting: Brad Pitt has been cast to play Jesse James in The Assassination of Jesse James, set to come out in September of this year (which means, in an ingenious marketing scheme, the producers of the movie have timed its release to coincide with Jesse James Days here in Northfield).
Now, this intrigued me: is Brad Pitt really the best guy that Ridley Scott could find to fill the shoes of the famous outlaw? I decided that, since the weather was getting progressively worse outside, I had nothing better to do than research this, and see if Brad Pitt really was the best choice or if some other actor would have been better suited to play this role.
First, I had to do some research, to get a few palpable facts concerning Jesse James, and for this I turned to my good friend Wikipedia. This, in turn, led me to a biography of Jesse James—Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War by T.J. Stiles, the summary of which describes James as “a foul-mouthed killer who acted as fiercely as anyone on the planet.” Now, things were really starting to get interesting, because this description of Jesse was a stark contrast to the portrait of the outlaw in the upcoming movie, where Jesse is described as “charismatic and unpredictable,’ and whose death was portrayed as a tragedy.
Who am I supposed to believe? Clearly, if in my research I was going to find an image of Jesse James agreed on by historians and biographers, I was going to have to stop jumping from biography to biography, because it seemed like the only thing that historians agreed on was that Jesse James was an outlaw; the topic of his character stirred debate and controversy. So I turned to past movies of Jesse James.
As expected, there were many titles to choose from to examine how Jesse’s character was treated. (What wasn’t expected, though, was the horror film Jesse James meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. Are you kidding?!) Finally, after what seemed destined to be a fruitless search on an otherwise hopeless day, I found what I was looking for: Jesse James had been played by Colin Farrel (in American Outlaws) and Robert Duvall (in The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid). In both movies, Jessse James and Cole Younger are treated as heroes—fighting the evil railroad corporation that ruthlessly displaces poor families from their homes.
So what this upcoming movie needs, then, is an actor who has believably played a hero in the past, and fits the age of Jesse James during his last years (when he died in 1882, he was 34). And, my dear reader, in my respective opinion, I chose Christian Bale. He’s done the hero bit before, fighting forces greater than himself in Batman Begins and Equilibrium. And, furthermore, he’s 11 years younger than Brad Pitt, Pitt is 9 years older than James was at the time he was killed.
Before I prove to you that Christian Bale as Jesse James works, I want to point out that, if you wish to e-mail me (benshoos@carleton.edu) with your opinion on my casting choice or to offer your own, I’d like to read it. Now to prove that Christian Bale is a casting choice that not only works logistically, but also cinematically, I’ll show it to you (stay with me, because it gets complicated here): Robert Duvall, who played Jesse James in 1972’s The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid starred with Jeff Daniels in 2003’s Gods and Monsters, who starred with George Clooney in 2005’s Good Night and Good Luck, who starred with Geoffrey Rush in 2003’s Intolerable Cruelty, who starred in Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean, who directed Michael Caine in The Weather Man who starred alongside Christian Bale in Batman Begins.
Interesting, isn’t it, that penultimately, it all comes back to The Weather Man?
I realize that, with all the other important things going on in the world—such as the National Day of Dignity for Immigrants on last Monday—this is a relatively ridiculous column. But sometimes, I think, that’s just fine. You can’t change the world in a day, and so, at some point or another, it’s okay to sit back, relax, and talk about pop culture, as long as you don’t forget that there is a world out there, beyond the confines of Sayles, Watson, Davis, Musser and Goodhue; a world beyond our busy lives and schedules that needs us to take action, to defend those who need help, to write our senators and to stand up for morally right issues. But, you don’t need me to tell you that, do you?
"Who Can Take The Weekend And Sprinkle It With Hate?" was originally published in The Carletonian on May 5, 2006. Reprinted with permission from the editor.
