It seems that Jane God a
Gun had a troubled production.
The Scottish Director Lynn Ramsay left while shooting it, and Michael Fassbender, Jude Law and Bradley
Cooper had already pulled out. This
left Gavin O’Connor to take up the directing, plus Natalie Portman (who
co-produced) and Joel Edgerton (who contributed to the script) to work with
Ewan McGregor and Noah Emmerich and bring it home. The film was given a limited release in the
US January (a dead month for movie goers) and seems to have lost a lot on
money. Many reviewers thought it was
too slow, too somber, and that Portman’s Jane was not dynamic enough.
But I liked it. It is
a slow burning Western with a female lead, and concerned with human relationships
as much as with gun-play. In fact the ‘gun’ that Jane has to get to help
her protect her family is a man, her former lover, played by Edgerton, an actor
I much admire. When I watched The Great Gatsby again I had to
reconsider the character of Tom Buchanan, as Edgeton’s performance revealed subtle
depths to it on second viewing. Here
also, in what may seem to be a straightforward
part, he reveals layers of complexity as
flash-backs reveal more and more of the history between him and Jane.
Nor did I miss the kind of ‘anything
you can do I can do better’ female gunslinger beloved by some. Jane is a rotten shot with a handgun – and why
would she have ever needed to be otherwise? – but she is a crack shot with her
rifle, used to shooting rabbits and coyotes rather than men. Of course Jane is very good looking and well
turned out for a prairie wife, but there is little Portman could do about the
former without resorting to silliness, and she does wear pretty much the same (period
and practical) outfit throughout the movie. It is
good to see subtly in a Western. The
music is understated – for the most part -
and the direction unfussy, unspectacular and unobtrusive. It looks as if O’Connor simply got on with
shooting the script rather than imposing himself on it.
The DVD I watched ‘Jane’
on also had trailer for The Keeping Room, another Western with
female leads – and a female point of view - that did not do well at the Box
Office. That starred Brit Marling,
Hailee Steinfeld and Muna Otarus. I
will look out for it.
I have remarked elsewhere that the pov of vampire movies has
changed in the last ten years or so, to
consider what it would be like to actually be a vampire (Thirst, Let the Right One In, Byzantium, Only Lovers Left Alive). In some recent films, such as the two mentioned
here plus The Homesman, Meek’s Cutoff,
True Grit and Cold Mountain, we
are invited to wonder what it would have really been like to be a woman in the 19th century
American West. The answer ? Often much tougher than for the men, coping,
as Lindy West has pointed out in The Guardian, with the combination of societal lawlessness
and personal vulnerability. Is this Revisionist? If that means seeing in a new way I welcome
it.
