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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 11, 2012 16:06:22 GMT -5
Did anyone else watch the PBS special on BTK last night? These things seem to be becoming formulaic. Not bad, but little insight.
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Post by sloanrodgers on Jan 12, 2012 20:41:12 GMT -5
I saw this documentary last night and thought it was good. Nice basic history, live-action scenes, photography and commentary by various authors without being too heavy. I'd give it two dead lawman stars, but not three.  |
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 12, 2012 21:03:38 GMT -5
That sounds about right.
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jerry
Full Member
Posts: 60
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Post by jerry on Jan 14, 2012 21:49:25 GMT -5
I was pleased that Frederick Nolan, the dean of Billy schlolars, provided commentary, as did Billy biographers Michael Wallis and Mark Lee Gardner. As noted above, the documentary was basic history - no startling new infomation provided.
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Post by Richard Weddle on Jan 16, 2012 3:51:05 GMT -5
I'm not that impressed with the American Experience documentary on the Kid. I wish the script had been more factual, and that the commentators had been more focused and objective. I know the commentators and respect them personally. I have no respect for Fred Nolan, who is a scam artist and a con man who habitually exploits local researchers. Nice of him to come all the way from England to instruct us in our history.
Documentaries should have footnotes during the end titles scroll, just like a history book does. That would force the script writer to account for his sources, to stick with facts, and lend credibility to his visual and verbal statements. It might also prevent him for making unsupported statements the way Fred Nolan does.
There are many errors of fact and errors of interpretation in this documentary. The most flagrant is the hero worship. Nobody considered the Kid to be a Robin Hood during his lifetime. The Latin community did not regard the Kid as a champion of the oppressed. I've spent 35 years of my life with the primary evidence for Billy the Kid, and I know there is no evidence to support these contentions.
Historians should write the scripts for historical documentaries, not TV writers, instead of hiring on as talking heads. If historians wrote the script the same way they reconstruct history for a journal or a book, documentaries would improve.
Richard
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 16, 2012 21:38:35 GMT -5
Richard - very interesting observations. The extent of my knowledge on this is the Walter Noble Burns bio and the more recent Gardner book. My impression is that BTK may have begun as a somewhat dicey guy who turned ugly when Dunstall was murdered and then became seriously homicidal. Frankly, while I find that period of some interest for what it says about the state of affairs there at the time, I've often wondered what all the fascination with BTK is or ever was.
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Post by mjbrathwaite on Jan 17, 2012 17:40:04 GMT -5
Am I right in thinking some new information regarding Billy the Kid and Lew Wallace has come to light? Our New Zealand T.V. guide had a listing for a documentary along those lines, but it was on cable TV, which I don't have, so I was unable to see it.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 17, 2012 19:54:45 GMT -5
Don't know if it's the same documentary, but this one mentioned the familiar story of Wallace promising BTK a pardon and then not delivering it.
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Post by sloanrodgers on Jan 17, 2012 22:01:43 GMT -5
Richard - very interesting observations. The extent of my knowledge on this is the Walter Noble Burns bio and the more recent Gardner book. My impression is that BTK may have begun as a somewhat dicey guy who turned ugly when Dunstall was murdered and then became seriously homicidal. Frankly, while I find that period of some interest for what it says about the state of affairs there at the time, I've often wondered what all the fascination with BTK is or ever was. I agree. The Kid did really well in history for an ambusher that got ambushed. |
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Post by Richard Weddle on Jan 18, 2012 9:38:04 GMT -5
Don't know if it's the same documentary, but this one mentioned the familiar story of Wallace promising BTK a pardon and then not delivering it. That story is familiar because it's a fact. Governor Wallace did in fact promise the Kid a pardon if certain conditions were met. The Kid met the conditions and then some. He earned the pardon. Pardon or no pardon, he did everything he could to end hostilities in Lincoln County and bring a stop to the fighting. By which time it had become politically inconvenient for Wallace to grant the pardon. Without it, there was no place for the Kid to go but down. Richard |
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 18, 2012 9:47:28 GMT -5
As I recall, that is the way the pardon story was related in the Burns and Gardner books. I have to agree on the overly melodramatic tone that these American Experience documentaries have taken in recent years. The one on Custer last night was even worse and it went on for 2 hours.
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Post by Richard Weddle on Jan 18, 2012 10:37:33 GMT -5
There is a vast difference between the Burns novel and the Gardner biography, Allen.
I expected a better episode on Custer -- better history and a better documentary. I never wanted to throw my shoe at the screen like I did the Kid episode, but it was a disappointment. You're absolutely right, the American Experience does a disservice to American history by approaching it like a four-hanky melodrama.
Who are they going to ruin next week?
Richard
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 18, 2012 11:35:58 GMT -5
They're re-running the Wyatt Earp program. As I recall, it's not that bad, but along the same lines.
Burns is quite an interesting character in the history of old west literature. My friend Mark Dworkin is working on a biography of Burns, which should be very interesting and well-written. I'm hoping Mark will not only tell us Burns's story, but trace the influence he had on many old west myths, legends and even facts.
I actually thought Gardner's book was better on Garrett than on BTK; I didn't see his accounts of the Kid's activities as that different from Burns (the murder of Tunstall, the jail breakout, etc.), at least in the essential facts, but my memory is pretty fuzzy on it by now.
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Post by mjbrathwaite on Apr 27, 2019 18:09:28 GMT -5
I've just been watching You Tube documentaries on Billy the Kid, and have come across Brushy Bill Roberts. Daniel A. Edwards has written a book arguing that he was Billy the Kid. I've also come across various articles claiming he was a fraud, and to me he looks nothing like Billy the Kid. Still, I have an open mind on the subject and would be interested to hear what other members have to say about it.
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