July 14: A Night in Fort Sumner
On July 14, 1881, Sheriff Pat Garrett shot Billy the Kid. Tonight's film: Westworld (1973).
Last night I ended up on Plex again. As usual. By the end of the day all I can do is lie on the couch and watch some other world spin in front of me. I’m hiding from the news, no secret there. And right before I hit play, I remembered what day this is. On this night in 1881, in Fort Sumner, a small American legend came to a close.
Henry McCarty, known to the world as Billy the Kid, had barely turned 21 when Sheriff Pat Garrett finally caught up with him. Weeks earlier Billy had broken out of the Lincoln jail, leaving two guards dead behind him. Garrett trailed him to Fort Sumner, to Pete Maxwell’s house. In the dark, the sheriff stood at the foot of the bed, and when a figure stepped into the room he fired. One shot, near the heart. He was buried the next day in the old military cemetery, between two of his fallen companions.
That’s the whole thing. A dark room, a single shot, a 21-year-old kid who generated so much myth that people still argue whether he survived under the name Brushy Bill Roberts.
And from there, jump to the film, because it ties the threads together in a way I like. Westworld was made in 1973, written and directed by Michael Crichton, his first time behind the camera. The idea is simple and sharp: a futuristic theme park where rich guests can live in Roman times, among medieval knights, or in the Wild West. The locals are robots. In the Western sector the guests pick up a gun and can shoot down mechanical lawmen and outlaws, including Yul Brynner’s Gunslinger. The exact world Billy the Kid walked out of, except now nobody actually dies. In theory.
Then, of course, the robots malfunction. Crichton later rewrote this same template with dinosaurs and called it Jurassic Park, but here in 1973 he was working raw and cheap. MGM gave him about 1.2 million dollars and 30 days. Out of that budget he made history: the Gunslinger’s robot-eye view was broken down digitally, the first time computer-generated imagery was used as an effect in a feature film. John Whitney Jr. processed the footage pixel by pixel, something a phone does for free now.
Honestly, the film isn’t perfect. The pacing drags in places, the other two parks barely get explored, and the 1970s makeup makes us smile today. But Yul Brynner’s faceless, relentless pursuer sticks. A machine that won’t stop, because it wasn’t programmed to. And that thought, in 1973, on the threshold of the AI era, lands much closer today than it did then. Crichton saw it coming fifty years before the rest of us started arguing about it.
Billy the Kid and the Gunslinger are two ends of the same myth. One was flesh and blood, and finished in a dark room. The other is metal and current, and never gets tired. Which of the two should scare us more is a more open question now than ever.
Forget the news for tonight. Put on Westworld. tonight, press play.
What else could have been tonight
On this day in 1789, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille. A royal prison, seven prisoners inside, and a crowd that wanted guns and gunpowder. About 98 defenders died, about 83 attackers. Fewer people sat in the prison than died taking it. France’s national holiday still lands on this date.
If revolution is the mood, V for Vendetta (2005) is the obvious pick. James McTeigue directed, the Wachowskis wrote it, Hugo Weaving wears the Guy Fawkes mask, and Natalie Portman shaves her head as Evey. It grossed 134 million dollars against a budget of about 54 million, and the mask that walked off the screen now shows up at protests worldwide. Based on the Alan Moore graphic novel, it’s still the first film I reach for when a people rises against a regime.
That same day in 1965, the Mariner 4 probe flew past Mars and sent back 21 close-up images. Twenty-five minutes of observation, and the pictures showed a cratered, moon-like, dead surface. More than a few people who had dreamed of life on Mars gave up that afternoon.
Which brings us to Red Planet (2000). Val Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss land on a colonization mission that goes badly wrong. It was Anthony Hoffman’s only film, the studio poured 80 million dollars into it, and it earned back about 33.5 million. Not a masterpiece. But the military robot AMEE, which suddenly flips into combat mode, asks the very question Mariner 4’s photos seemed to close: whether we’re really alone up there, and whether our machines stay friendly once we’re not around.
Sources
Main event (Billy the Kid):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_the_Kid (date and place of death, age)
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pat-Garrett (Garrett’s killing, July 14 1881)
Film (Westworld):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_(film) (director, cast, first CGI)
https://michaelcrichton.com/works/westworld/ (budget and conditions)
https://www.vulture.com/2016/09/westworld-franchise-long-weird-history.html (30-day shoot, around 1 million dollars)
Side events:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Bastille (July 14 1789, seven prisoners)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film) (134 million dollar gross, 54 million budget)
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mariner-4/ (July 14 1965, first close-up images)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Planet_(film) (80 million budget, box-office flop)