“I believe one fella come from Arkansas. Get it?”
- Karl Childers/Sling Blade
Even if everything he'd done afterward was rubbish, I'd still be a fan of Billy Bob Thornton, for one reason, Sling Blade. It will forever be in my top ten favorite movies of all time. Billy Bob was a struggling writer and actor in Hollywood for years before he was able to get his masterpiece financed and made. Written, directed and starred in by Thornton, the movie tells the story of a simple-minded man, freed from a mental hospital after time served for a heinous crime he'd committed years prior. Karl Childers is turned out into the world of small town Arkansas with the clothes on his back, a few books tied together and no family or friends anywhere, period.
It's a small, quiet story of friendship, sacrificial love, the presence of evil and how truth is often seen by the least likeliest among us. Besides the beauty and originality of the story, here's what makes it so great, it's completely authentic in its depiction of southern ethos.
I lived over half my life in the south and there are few things more grating than watching Hollywood try to portray southern life and culture and all its myriad complexities and nuance's. People from Yazoo City, Mississippi don't try to make movies about the denizens of Manhattan's Upper West Side, do they? No they don't because they know how phony that would turn out. Hollywood's not that humble. And there is no better example of Hollywood's ineptitude than with the accents they try to pass off as "Southern." Oh, my, with few exceptions, they're astonishingly awful.
But Sling Blade is a true exception because it's the product of someone born, raised and shaped by life in Arkansas. It's bone deep. Billy Bob is not just "from" Arkansas, he is “of” Arkansas; Malvern, Arkansas, and it's evident in his creation.
I've read Billy Bob's sorta-memoir called The Billy Bob Tapes. It's full of crazy and entertaining stories about his growing up in the rough and rural world of central Arkansas, working a variety of low skill jobs before going to Hollywood to try and catch on. Coming of age as we both did in the free-range, feral environment of country-fied America in the 60s and 70s, I felt like we could have been running buddies.
In addition to laying asphalt and working as a roadie for the band Black Oak Arkansas in his teens and early 20s, Billy Bob was a fledgling musician. He played drums in various bands around the Malvern area. I think I've heard him say he considers himself a musician first. He's had a band for years called The Boxmasters. A few years back they came to Bartlett, TN, a Memphis suburb, and played their small 350 seat performing arts center. Kendra and I went. Billy Bob and the band came out and played maybe four or five numbers. Then Billy Bob asked for the house lights to be turned up a little bit and he took a microphone off the stand, walked up and sat on the front of the stage. There he just riffed for about 45 minutes, chatting and telling stories, talking about his connections with the area. He graciously took some questions from people when they'd ask one. It felt like we were in someone's living room just having a chat. Lead singer, Jim Dandy, from Black Oak Arkansas was in attendance. There was some talk about Billy Bob's roadie days with the band. He also talked about, not in a “poor me” way, but just how lousy it is in our social media age it is to be famous. The lies that are made up and spread about people with no basis in fact are a scourge that we all live with. What can be done? Nothing.
Where am I going with this? Who knows? I guess my point is, even if it's something or someone we don't care for, we all crave and appreciate authenticity. We often hear it said, “Get real” or “Let's be real." Well, Billy Bob and his masterwork Sling Blade are as real as it gets. See it if you haven't; see it again if you have. Savior its genius.