Venice, Sept 03: Brad Pitt plays the fabled US outlaw Jesse James in a new film based on the days leading to his death at the hands of young protege Robert Ford.
"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" has a long title and, at 155 minutes, is a long movie which is in the main competition at the Venice film festival and has its world premiere on Sunday.
The Hollywood star portrays James -- a bandit and heroic Robin Hood figure to many during his life and long after his demise -- as a man tired of life on the run, who foresees his end is nigh and appears to hasten his death as a way of escape.
"I saw it ... as a guy who sensed impending doom, the inevitable end, who had been trapped in a facade and living an alias for so long and didn't know a way around it," Pitt told a news conference after a press screening.
"I find that more interesting, because it's more human to me than this black and white characterization."
New Zealand-born Andrew Dominik, directing only his second film, said he wanted to focus on the characters' internal struggles more than the relationships between them.
"It's kind of like life -- you know, we struggle more with ourselves than other people," he said of the film, based on Ron Hansen's novel of the same title.
While James has more fame than he wants, Ford, played by Casey Affleck, dreams of filling his hero's shoes one day.
A social misfit who is constantly teased and bullied, he gradually sees that his easiest path to stardom would be to kill the man he idolizes, and in the film he is hired by the governor of Missouri to bring James down.
The film takes in the intimate interiors of log cabins and saloons of 1880s America and pans to stunning shots of plains and rolling hills through the seasons.
But despite the subject matter and cinematography, Pitt said he saw it as more of a gangster movie than a Western.
The 43-year-old actor, who arrived in Venice with his partner and fellow Hollywood A-lister Angelina Jolie and their children, was also a producer on "Assassination".
When asked if he might try his hand at directing, he said, "I don't have the stones for it. I would probably go crazy and my feeling is there are too many good people doing it."
Early critical reaction to the historical drama has been mixed, with journalists in Venice generally enthusiastic about the film but the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt calling it pretentious and vacuous.
Pitt was asked about sustaining his career while having four children, and said it made him a much more efficient actor.
"That (the children) is the main focus and it is the most fun I have ever had," he said. "It is also the biggest pain in the arse I have ever experienced. I love it and I can't recommend it any more highly ... Sleep is non-existent."
Bureau Report
