(at around 55 mins) When Dick Liddil wakes up and goes downstairs to investigate a noise, he takes a revolver from under his pillow and cocks it. A second later, as he goes down the steps by candle light, the pistol is clearly not cocked.
(at around 2h 20 mins) Towards the end of the film, Robert Ford shoots, then throws the gun on the floor. The gun disappears when Ford leaves.
(at around 1h 35 mins) When Jesse James and Charley Ford cross a frozen river, Jesse wipes away the snow to check the ice thickness. He also fires 3 rounds from his revolver into the ice. In a subsequent shot the brushed away snow is visible, and a fish swims under the ice, with no evidence of the 3 shots James fired.
(at around 11 mins) Early in the movie when the gang members are talking in the woods, one man holds his shotgun in at least 2 different ways between shots. The shotgun also disappears and reappears between shots.
Whenever Jesse James smokes a cigar, the length of the cigar and its ash changes dramatically between shots.
This movie takes place between September 8th, 1881 and April 3rd, 1882. At the end of the film, Jesse is shown standing in golden wheat up to his hips. In Missouri, wheat is planted in the late fall and is dormant until Spring. At this point in Spring, even under the most ideal conditions, the Missouri wheat crop would have likely been less than a foot tall and completely green.
(at around 15 mins) Just before the Blue Cut robbery, the ballast (packed stones) on the railway track is rattling loose to the ground. Ballast, by design, should be deep and packed under, around and to the sides of the ties. Loose ballast would be useless and would cause the sleepers and track to move, in and of itself risking derailing of the train.
Trains being as vital a mode of transport were well maintained and would not have small amounts of loose ballast. Ballast was so important many train lines were named for the color of the ballast.
Trains being as vital a mode of transport were well maintained and would not have small amounts of loose ballast. Ballast was so important many train lines were named for the color of the ballast.
(at around 2h 30 mins) At the end of the film, it appears to be at the height of winter with deep snow when Bob Ford is assassinated. In reality, Bob was killed on June 8, 1982.
(at around 1h 50 mins) When Jesse James plans the Platte robbery, he refers to Robert Ford's fear as "motor." In 1856, motor was defined as a machine that supplies motive power. At the time, motors were common in toys and steam engines. It was not unusual at the time to use the term "motor" for what is happening inside a person's head.
(at around 11 mins) As the gang members wait during the day to rob the train at Blue Cut that night, one gang member recites a poem by Catullus ("My love says she would marry only me ..."). The words are from "Catullus: The Complete Poems for American Readers", by Reney Myers and Robert J. Ormsby, published in 1970. However Catullus was a Roman poet who died over 2,000 years ago and it is entirely possible it had been translated elsewhere prior to this book.
In the opening lines the narrator says that Jesse James had granulated eyelids which caused him to "blink more than usual" yet Brad Pitt does not incorporate this character trait into his portrayal of Jesse James. This contradiction between the narration and Brad's performance may have been a deliberate choice made by the director to emphasize the difference between myth and historical reality.
(at around 8 mins) Robert Ford uses the term "gunslinger" but this term didn't come into use until at least the 1920's. Terms for outlaw gunmen appropriate for the time would have been gunman, pistoleer, shootist, or even gunfighter.
(at around 36 mins) Twice, the film shows Jesse James dime novels as part of Robert Ford's personal Jesse James collection, which he keeps in a box under the bed at his sisters' farm. Those novels, specifically the one on top of the collection, were created in 1901.
(at around 2h 25 mins) In a scene set in 1892, people in the saloon sing "A Bird in a Gilded Cage," which was written in 1900.
(at around 2h) The glass on Jesse James nightstand Bob Ford picks up and handles is a mid-20th century 10 sided 750 ml. Luminarc made glass. Thick durable tempered glassware and mainstay of French kitchens, the Luminarc brand was created in 1958. The typical water glass of the period would be a handmade mouth blown vessel, blown into a mold or pressed.
"Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That's an Irish Lullaby)" is heard being whistled in the film, but wasn't written until 1913.