'Billy the Kid' film set to shoot

FORT SUMNER — Billy the Kid lives on in a new film scheduled to begin shooting Saturday in Fort Sumner.

Filmmaker Michael Giudicissi seeks to address unanswered questions about the Kid by turning to the man himself.

Giudicissi said “In Their Own Words, Billy The Kid & The Lincoln County War” will feature re-created interviews with the Kid and other notable figures from the Lincoln County War, including Sheriff William Brady, John Tunstall and others.

Giudicissi said the 15 or so actors and re-enactors will be drawing from dozens if not hundreds of books, films and research archive documents such as letters for their performances. The mission is to pull these characters from the grave to answer questions about the Lincoln County War with a modern-day perspective.

“But the key thing here is this is totally unscripted. So when I sit behind the camera as the director and ask these questions, I’m not exactly sure what the person is going to say. It’s going to be based on their research and their interpretation of the character,” Giudicissi said.

Giudicissi said in part the idea for the film came from an internet series he works on called “One Day Only,” in which figures from the Old West come back to life for a day to tell their story.

“We’ve never obviously had the people actually be able to speak for themselves as contemporaries and to me it’s interesting to see what those people would say after the fact about all of the things that took place and how many of them would be surprised at how in the public conscience Billy the Kid has become,” Giudicissi said.

Giudicissi said he became interested in the Kid, born Henry McCarty but known as William H. Bonney, a couple of decades ago after a girlfriend dragged him to see the film “Young Guns” because it starred Kiefer Sutherland. Giudicissi eventually moved from New Jersey to New Mexico years later because of his interest in the outlaw.

“It did kind of fascinate me about a time when guys would kind of live and die by the gun and life was taken very lightly and they believed in things and were willing to kill and die for them without any formal declaration of war,” Giudicissi said.

Giudicissi said the independent film will begin shooting early Saturday morning and be completed by sundown. He said all of the filming will occur at the Kid’s gravesite located south of town, so the production will not cause any disruption for residents.

“We’ll be filming in and around the cemetery, but I have a small crew and only two actors so we’re going to be as minimally intrusive as possible. In fact if there are tourists there, I would highly encourage them to go about their business, look curiously at the actors, kind of like what you would really do if Billy the Kid actually did show up when you were visiting his grave,” Giudicissi said.

He said the film, tentatively scheduled to be released in the fall, will also be shooting in Albuquerque and an Old West recreated town in Texas called Marrow Bone Springs.

Gerald Cline, executive officer director for the Fort Sumner/DeBaca County Chamber of Commerce, said films like Giudicissi’s keep the Kid in the public conscience and can help drive tourist traffic to Fort Sumner and other parts of eastern New Mexico.

Cline said there are still many people who question if the Kid is actually buried here, or even if he really died in Fort Sumner in 1881. Some people believe he went on to live in Paris, Cline said. Such questions still drive interest in the outlaw years later.

“The history of (the Kid) is like a puzzle. If you were doing a regular puzzle and you lost that one piece, it would bug you for years and years and years until you found that final piece to put in and finish that puzzle,” Cline said. “I think even in today’s day and age with technology and carbon dating and DNA and stuff, we still don’t have all the pieces and so there’s still that mystery, that allure. There’s still people looking for that lost puzzle piece and I think that’s what keeps people still interested in Billy the Kid and western culture even (138) years later.”

Giudicissi said he hopes to explore the human element of the characters of the Lincoln County War and possibly change how they are viewed by people today.

“Whoever you believe was a good person had some bad elements and whoever you believe were the bad elements really had some human characteristics and hopes and dreams and wishes, ” Giudicissi said.

“And a lot of these guys died way, way too soon eventually for nothing because, in the end, both sides collapse and nobody won.”