I also saw Billy the Kid yesterday afternoon and found it to be both entertaining as well as insightful and extremely empathetic towards Billy. It's heartbreaking to watch his struggles and even those of us who do not share his difficulties can relate to the desperate feelings of being an outsider looking in.
I found the film particularly striking because my little sister, who has never been definitively diagnosed with any specific syndrome, shares a tremendous amount of 'symptoms' with Billy. It was eerie to watch him on screen copying all of my sisters idiosyncracies, down to the eye rolling and even a great deal of his strange vocabulary. I'm struggling with the decision of whether or not to reccommend the film to my sister because, as anyone who's seen the film could guess, she's very sensetive.
I would like to personally thank the filmmakers for treating Billy with so much respect. I have every confidence that everyone who left that theater yesterday, if they were to come across my little sister in the future, would treat her differently and look beyond her 'differentness' to see the earnest and very lonely person underneath.
I watched Billy The Kid this afternoon at Hot Docs. Quixotically, irrationally, and very much to your credit, I found the experience intensely embarrassing.
Despite the fact that Billy and I are quite different (I was blond and decided not heterosexual,) Billy constantly, almost eerily, "quoted" my adolescent self, often word for word. The concordance in the tone of our adolescent experiences was so sympathetic as to be uncomfortably painful. Difficult though it was, I of course am profoundly thankful for your depiction of Billy, and for Billy's willingness to share a part of his life with us.
Not unlike Billy, I grew up in a very small town, with way too many ideas in my head, with strong communications skills, and with an otherwise inexplicable but near-total lack of social integration. Although I have largely been successful in life so far (I'm in my thirties now,) I am to this day very socially "insoluble." For instance, although I can hold my own in an intellectual conversation with anyone, I am almost completely body language blind.
One of the common threads I would like to take a moment to expand upon is my perception that Billy is more able to make "moral" judgments than social ones. It took another film, Welby Ings' Boy (New Zealand, 2004) to help me see that part of the reason for my own social insolubility was an early choice by my over-sensitive mind to value the moral qualities of a situation more than the social qualities. I say more about this here.
Thanks, your film was one of many treats at HotDocs 2007!
3 comments:
I also saw Billy the Kid yesterday afternoon and found it to be both entertaining as well as insightful and extremely empathetic towards Billy. It's heartbreaking to watch his struggles and even those of us who do not share his difficulties can relate to the desperate feelings of being an outsider looking in.
I found the film particularly striking because my little sister, who has never been definitively diagnosed with any specific syndrome, shares a tremendous amount of 'symptoms' with Billy. It was eerie to watch him on screen copying all of my sisters idiosyncracies, down to the eye rolling and even a great deal of his strange vocabulary. I'm struggling with the decision of whether or not to reccommend the film to my sister because, as anyone who's seen the film could guess, she's very sensetive.
I would like to personally thank the filmmakers for treating Billy with so much respect. I have every confidence that everyone who left that theater yesterday, if they were to come across my little sister in the future, would treat her differently and look beyond her 'differentness' to see the earnest and very lonely person underneath.
b.
Enjoyed the film very much at Hot Docs. My review is here: http://www.torontoscreenshots.com/2007/04/22/billy-the-kid/
I also include your Q&A (hope that's ok!).
Whilom said...
I watched Billy The Kid this afternoon at Hot Docs. Quixotically, irrationally, and very much to your credit, I found the experience intensely embarrassing.
Despite the fact that Billy and I are quite different (I was blond and decided not heterosexual,) Billy constantly, almost eerily, "quoted" my adolescent self, often word for word. The concordance in the tone of our adolescent experiences was so sympathetic as to be uncomfortably painful. Difficult though it was, I of course am profoundly thankful for your depiction of Billy, and for Billy's willingness to share a part of his life with us.
Not unlike Billy, I grew up in a very small town, with way too many ideas in my head, with strong communications skills, and with an otherwise inexplicable but near-total lack of social integration. Although I have largely been successful in life so far (I'm in my thirties now,) I am to this day very socially "insoluble." For instance, although I can hold my own in an intellectual conversation with anyone, I am almost completely body language blind.
One of the common threads I would like to take a moment to expand upon is my perception that Billy is more able to make "moral" judgments than social ones. It took another film, Welby Ings' Boy (New Zealand, 2004) to help me see that part of the reason for my own social insolubility was an early choice by my over-sensitive mind to value the moral qualities of a situation more than the social qualities. I say more about this here.
Thanks, your film was one of many treats at HotDocs 2007!
Whilom
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