didier-20

Nothing on her lesbian crushes or relationships in NYC.

Her last unwitting film performance in Peter De Rome's artful gay porn movie, Adam and Yves in 1974 makes a brief apperance but no mention of the movie itself. Instead her NYC queer friends are presented as ultimatly disloyal and exploitative.

An apparent need to strighten the narrative seems unnecessary, resemebling the kind of closeted biography making that used to occur before the 1990s.

The director seemed unresolvedly torn between celebrating the cause celebe of an icon or revealing the person beneath and in the end the latter is side-stepped and compromised in favour of retaining an enigma. But for what ?

An interesting survey of roman imperial power and it's creation, adaptation, utilisation, neogtiation and final adoption of the emerging forms of Christian religion.

If there is a weakness it would be that the work has an american slant to the narrative and seems to have been made for american Christian digestion.

So with that said, the film misses a trick by mislaying Jesus Christ altogether. He simply occurs as a bit part player in the epilogue and one can't help wondering why the film does this, considering the apparant intended viewer.

The film comes close to but misses the opportunity of inserting a real Jesus.

1. It states in passing that the word 'Christ' is originally greek but omits to give further definition or explain what the original greek term reffered to, being the 'annoited one' mentioned as a messiah in Jewish scripture.

2. It notes that the gospels are much more literary device than factual testimony but fails to explain the origins of gospel writing which leads to a clue that Jesus may have been a real person.

If it's important to include the distant possiblity of the real Jesus, then the origins of gospel writing need presenting:

The roman world revered all Greek literature as the highest pinacle of human culture. In fact they revered all things greek in general and greek slaves were routinely employed to educate the aristoratic and elite's children.

Likewise, the roman empire relied on a news gathering network of 'libraries' which wrote the news of the day and this was done by 'scribes'.

The tradition of being a scribe was passed through the male line from father to son and the apprentice to the craft and job meant a life already determined but considered a privilldge to be born into such a fate.

Part of the training of the scribe was emersion in greek literature, with the work of Plato considered the highest quality, relating particually to the character of Socrates, someone we have only been able to know of through Plato's works.

So it is understood that in a far off province, a trial of a man called Jesus did take place and that the scribes were excited to see that the form of argument manifested during the trial resembled and evoked Plato's trial and Death of Socrates.

This contemporary manifestation excited the scribes and a tradition took root in training, to write the trial of an unknwn provoncial named Jesus in the manner of the Trial and death of Socrates so as to elevate the quotidian subject to the level of Socrates. This educational practice spread so that greek slaves educating roman aristcrats also applied what was in essence a literary exercise which gave insight into the strucutre of literature, drama, Plato and the character of Socrates.

So it was that by the time the gospels occur, the tradition of writing the trial of Jesus as a mark of a recieved greek education was well established.

The literay orgins of the gospels are part and parcel of the rite of passage of a well educated person in the roman world. The fall, trial and death of a man called Jesus as told in the gospels is a formal exercise in dramatic writing lifted straight from Plato's own work about Socrates death and a reading of the latter makes plain the evidence.

The fact that an exercise originally devised to celebrate and teach greek culture becomes included in the bible highlights the Greek literary root of Christianity alongside the more literary contributions of Jewish scripture. Both together make the idea of text and a book being central to Christian religion highly inevitable.

I think it's important to re-insert a real jesus into the picture this film makes, but from a historical perspective and the scribe exercise proposal fits as well as all the other historical assertions mentioned in the film.

The documentary represents a survey of the Patirck Mackay case largely because he is now being considered for release.

However, there is careless handling which doesn't induce comprehensive assessment after his 47 years in prison, but rather opts for some of the cheap thrills.

The title's use of the word 'psycho' as well as a tendancy towards sensationalisation, even glamourisation of altered states of psychotic behaviour is not appropriate. The approach seems inspired by Mackay's own startling photo-booth images of himself as a young man pulling garish faces. But 'psycho' isn't a useful or accurate term and it's meaning is prejducial to notions of mental illness so why use it in the title ?

The film does cover some of the historical narrative concerning the significant level of neglect of mental health care Mackay expereinced in his youth. But it sidesteps the fact that found guilty of only 2 counts of manslaughter due to diminshed responsbility he was sent to prison anyway rather than a secure psychiatric unit.

This means there are now important questions as to the continued level of neglect of mental support Mackay may have exprienced during his entire prision term and to what extent this might form a miscarage of justice and a failure to apply the correct 'treatment'. The use of a young voice-over to narrate various quotes attributed to Mackay only highlight Mackay's lack of skill and insight into his own mental health whilst confirming neglect of any suitable psychiatric treatment has remained an issue.

Further there's a tendancy to over expose images of Mackay as a yonug man whilst ignoring the fact Mackay grows into a middle aged man in the prison system, experiencing some of the most progressive rehabiliative programs of the 80s and 90s.

The examination of the prision system Mackay will have experienced as well as Mackay as a mature man is absent as the film short cuts to an alarmism in the face of threatening assertions about Mackay's possible release put forward by the now retired nd aging police involved with the case over 40 years ago.

The film also makes some as yet unjustifiable assertions concerning suspicion about the numbers of people Mackay was suspected of killing, going as far as asserting he may be Britain;s most prolific serial killer. Yet Mackay was only convicted of 2 manslaughters and his own admissions were unreliable. The police have never proved his association with the mentioned cold cases.

Greater clarity as to if Mackay and his release constitutes a threat to public safety lies in all these absent examinations which the director substitutes instead with a strategy to influence political intervention on the matter through amplifyying sensationalist degrees of fear-mongering.

In my view, good documentary would have saught to present the complexity of grey area whilst upholding the idea that the prison system is a place of potential rehabilitation, a route Mackay was made subject of in his punishment and so it is this aspect of rehabilitation as well as a failure to provide appropriate psychiatric care as attitudes evolves over the decades which should be under scrutiny.

One only hopes that the parole board may be more enlightned in their views than this film and it's conclusions in the matter of creating suitable judegment of Mackay's rights as well as potential risks.