Billy the Kid

MOVIE #1,457 •🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿• 03.19.24 Taking a 24T pause today to focus on what I'm calling the 2007 Mark Baumer Selects series. As I work my way through the vast YouTube and other Internet archives of Baumer, I came across three interviews he did with filmmakers in 2007. These conversations are strange, both because Baumer, in his typical style, went about them in a weird way, and for the simple fact that they exist at all. How, why and where was he even talking to these people? (You can find more information on these videos in the Mark Baumer Collection, spine #s 005, 007 and 009.) The first of these interviews was with Jennifer Venditti, director of the documentary Billy the Kid, a profile of a precocious teen named Billy who lives in a small town in Maine.

Two questions immediately arise: why this kid and how did she stumble upon him? And, no offense, is he autistic? In a very vague segment, his mother retells the story of getting him checked by a doctor who said he should be institutionalized, but supportive teachers convinced herself otherwise*. He cops to being depressed and having an extremely troubled childhood but this is not otherwise directly explored. His persona reminded me of YouTuber Dax Flame, whose awkwardness is somewhere between self-aware put-on and a genuine strangeness that might be mental health related.

This is Venditti's only directorial effort to date. She's mostly a casting director who has collaborated multiple times with the Safdie brothers. Venditti actually discovered Billy during a casting call for a 2006 short film called Bugcrush. If this ends up being her only feature, it's a pretty amazing one-and-done effort. I was extremely touched by this film in a way that I haven't felt since American Movie. It's raw, tender and engrossing, and I can't recommend it enough.


*In an interview released around the time of the oscilloscope re-release, the real Billy did an interview where he does reference this: "just because you’re autistic, or have some kind of ‘handicap’ as they call it, doesn’t make you any different from any other person."

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"I'm not black, I'm not white, not foreign, just different in the mind. Different brains, that's all," explains 15-year-old Billy in Jennifer Venditti's provocative coming of age film. Billy's intuitive commentary and intimate verite footage reveal a unique attitude as he responds to a painful childhood, first time love, and his experience as an outsider in small town Maine. By turns humorous and disturbing, this portrait challenges the viewer to understand a triumphant teen on his own terms. This was released on March 11, 2007.