Black and white obscure the scene's boundary's, they render it like a whole. We see, but  we don't distinguish. And then we see a hand, a seated man, hairs that invade the room's floor. It's a barber we hardly notice. The light is too strong, almost blinding. It would seem we have arrived in some sort of final place, were the body's identity is hardly even contemplated. The man continues smoking nervously and cutting hair, sublimating the gesture's meccanicity in co-action with the repetition of a absent/present body. But there has to have been a passage till here, a geometric design which has  produced this suspension of presence. But lets return back in time to exam how Billy Bob Thornton has got to that point. Billy was born in 1955 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Apparently young Billy had no intention to become a movie star since his passion was music. He was very talented and as a young artist he realized he would've never succeeded  in his small hometown. After his high school studies and forming a small band "Tres hombres", Billy thinks about leaving his hometown behind, in search of success in a big city.

We're talking about L.A. Young Billy probably felt lost and scared at the time (the early 80's) but at the same time eager to use his artistic potentialities. Music or cinema? Both, Thornton wanted to be a director or a screenwriter. Music is always in his mind, but his priority is another. He isn't alone in L.A., a friend of his a certain Tom Epperson is with him. That didn't make things easy for the young artist who didn't make much money and wasn't able to have himself noticed, but Billy wasn't discouraged. In 1992 the tide was about to turn, a screenplay of his was bought by an important production company. His screenplay was directed by Carl Franklin and is called "One false move". It's one of the most interesting films of the 90's. It's about a policeman with a morale problem. The movie has hot thoughts about the morality of seeing and acting. The movie is a jewel even if the director is nothing special. Thornton imposes his ambiguous seduction's view never decodable on golden Hollywood. We'll wait only untill 1996 to see the first Thornton directed film: " Sling Blade", in which he's also actor and screenwriter. The movie impresses name, sensibility and presence in the viewer. Strangely the movie wins an Oscar for best screenplay and gets a nomination for best male performance in a leading role.

Lets explain the use of the word strangely. Thornton's filmmaking breaks the rules, it's obsessive, violent and restless. "Sling Blade" is the story of a violent freak who's ready to take on the world's violence. But it's also a splendid example of how movies must exam the body before the vision. Thorton does exactly that, doing so he appears out of his time because of his sublime and anachronistic classicism which doesn't share anything with the postmodernism that characterizes so many 90's movies. This impression is confirmed in another movie of his. A flaming love story set in the old, agonizing West. The movie was misinterpreted by many who disliked the presentation of western scenario's. Tornton didn't want to corrupt a genre or to do things nobody else ever did. He interprets the view of some one who beleives what he describes, he's far away from thesis based cinema, his filmmaking is pure cinema and it's very ambitious. Only few understood him but that's alright. An eye should be kept on him in the future. Thornton as a great actor, a real mimic who is unrecognizable from movie to movie. His films (and we won't name them all) range from "Armageddon" to "The Man Who Wasn't There". In "The Winner" the film ends with the capitulation of moneys powerful "shining". Although Thornton ( who plays the part of a retard) is submerged in Raimi's apocalyptic fabulation , Billy anyway manages small moments of sense to eliminate the representative level from a stage to the other of psychological material. His face isn't identifiable, his frown has something disgusting to it and at the same time participates to the human /actorial ritual of identification of an expressive stilema. Before we conclude lets analyze Billy's human side. He became a celebrity in the mid 90's. In 1996 he gets married for the fifth (and hopefully last) time. His new bride this time is Angelina Jolie ewhom he meets working. He took part in the television series "Heart Afire" and "The Outsiders". In 2001 his first music album "Private Radio" receives great critic success. But how could we not conclude with the beautiful image from "The Man Who Wasn't There" with which we started. The man we tried to describe is now clearer to us all. He's not just a barber. He's a loser too, but we're not totally sure of that. We're talking about shadows, ghosts and men who weren't there. Thornton is one of them. He's invisible and far away. He's a juxtaposed image of bodies which don't exist anymore.

traduzione a cura di Giuliano Capogrossi Colognesi