| Established 1986 | Return to Editor's Cell | December 2001 |
| DIRTY LITTLE BILLY - Academy Cinema, Pearse Street. For several years a new view of the American
scene has begun to emerge at the cinema. Dirty
Little Billy is an example. The story another
"reality" behind the myth of Billy the Kid and
Stan Dragoti made it.
Truth in the case of reality as he sees it can never be
grasped because we are all too stupid, and yet each a
little cleverer than someone else in some respect,
tricking one another for the permanent fake idea of human
“survival”. From the start this film is
confusing and the confusion lasts for longer than the
conventional introduction to “plot”. The
camera eye examines the mess so tenderly; clarity of
perspectives, detail of object and small movement,
innuendos are all the time in sight. The
examination is so casual and erratic that the confusion
of the senses is maintained and the examination of the
people hardly seems to have any purpose. Everything
seems to happen in response to some instinct; it is, and
therefore submits to “fate”. The story
afterwards however is so very simple, in fact the vague
outline of so many lives – and so we begin to tell
it, until the myth takes over and becomes lodged in the
mind as a lie. The hero is created by the forces
beyond his control. The hero may even be Goldie if
you think about it sometime.
Billy’s parents don’t read the contract they
sign for a house and land – did you? There was
the opportunity to do so. If you could be morally
shocked about Goldie maybe it is because you didn’t
hear one conversation. This film can be taken as
you can take it. It could seem like an illusion
afterwards.
An “epidemic” in another settlement along the
new Galveston Railroad swells the population of Billy’s
place. The people have now become numerically
eligible as citizens in law: they can hire a professional
law man – they can elect a mayor! And they are
now responsible in law for all the post-dated pieces of
paper they’ve ever signed. The land grabber, a
generation in advance has already safeguarded his future.
Law is a weapon that is effective as a gun, except that
you need not be dead unless…
Is all resolute action a matter of personal survival?
A survival empty of good, but a fair imitation of the
“bad” brought about by the fact that if it is
possible to have power the forces that threaten your
power. A system in which individual freedom is
becoming merely an illusion? The true story. TREBLIN TIMES, November 1973 |
| Thomas Jefferson: "If the
American people ever allow private banks to control the
issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by
deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up
around them will deprive the people of all property until
their children homeless on the continent their fathers
conquered." |
| The Publication of unexpectedly grim
crime statistics have blown the myth of a New York united
since the attacks of 11th of September. Violent criminals
in the poorer quarters have taken up their guns again to
bring about a sharp reversal of the cities plunging crime
rate. The figures come as a jolt, all forms of crime fell
dramatically following 11th of September, a sense of
shock uniting the community. But in recent weeks with
police resources drained by the rescue efforts,"the
bad guys are starting to carry guns again" says one
investigator, "and when there is a fight, a robbery
or dispute,out come the guns and pow, pow, pow - we have
someone lying in the street." Ed Vulliamy, November 2001 |
 |
| Steve Bell, Guardian 2001 |