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Article: Overkill in the Wild West.(FILM)(The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)(Movie review)
- Article from:
- The American Conservative
- Article date:
- October 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 The American Conservative LLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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[The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford]
WHILE HOLLYWOOD is routinely scorned as a haven for illiterates, the modern movie industry's clean little secret is its inordinate veneration of writers. Increasingly, screenwriters are allowed to direct their own scripts, turning the Auteur Theory into a reality a half century after it was concocted by fantasizing Frenchmen ignorant of how Golden Age Hollywood actually worked.
No movie illustrates film folks' infatuation with the written word more than the accurate, intelligent, and magnificent-looking yet unentertaining art Western "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," ...