Ode a Billy Joe

Tragic movie.

The backstory on this 1976 film is interesting. 10 years earlier the country music singer Bobbie Gentry had written a song with the same title which tells of a young man committing suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge. But Gentry's lyrics never reveal why the fictional Billy Joe killed himself and in interviews about the song she was very coy and unrevealing.

So, they made a movie about it. Robbie Benton, teen idol of the 70s, plays the title character although this movie is really about the young girl who loves hm: Bobby Joe Hartley, played by Glynnis O'Connor. I thought these two young actors were incredible in their roles and they held this otherwise flawed movie together. The subject matter can feel a little strange at times (there aren't many movies these days that delve into the sexual desires of a 15 year old girl) but if you can get past that, I think you'll enjoy this movie. It's not an all time great one but just for Benton and O'Connor's acting alone, it was worth watching.

Yes, it's the film of That Song. No movie can ever hope to to justice to the enigmatic, doom-laden 1967 Bobbie Gentry hit, or come close to capturing the stifling Southern atmosphere that the song evokes so well, but as a film in its own right, this prettily-photographed tale is not at all bad. The locations are all genuine Mississippi, and cinematographer Michel Hugo has done an excellent job of evoking the exuberance of high summer.

And talking of the 1960's, remember Jethro Bodine and his sixth-grade education? Well the actor who created Jethro (and is also the son of the heavyweight boxing champion), Max Baer Jr., produced and directed this quirky little offering.

It is Mississippi in 1953, and the pretty adolescent girl Bobby Lee is having fantasies about boys. Billy Joe McAlister begins to court her, but as their mutual affection blossoms, darker currents are swirling beneath the Tallahatchee Bridge ...

A careful, almost literal rendering of the song, the film is a commendable effort which gets stronger and more assured as it goes along. If it is somewhat heavy with Deep South cliche (plenty of "ah dew declayer" and "raaaht neighbourly"), it really couldn't have been otherwise. The song itself is overloaded with similar stuff. I personally did not like Bobby Lee's poem, which struck me as to syrupy and too slow.

Bobby Benson is adequate as the haunted Billy Joe, but the film's real success is the performance of Glynnis O'Connor as Bobby Lee. She handles the range of emotions with aplomb, and virtually demands that the viewer identify with her. The final scene on the bridge confirms that Bobby Lee has grown as a person and has emerged from the tragedy stronger than the adults around her.

Bobby Lee's huffy soliloquy on the country road is very good, with its subtle edge of self-deprecating humour, and the long courting-scene which follows it is nicely-judged. The rueful interregnum after Billy Joe's disappearance is beautifully done, dominated by the delightful Michel Legrand piano score. The rag doll floating in the water is a striking symbol, both of Billy Joe and of the abandonment of childhood.

Verdict - If a film version of the Bobbie Gentry song is going to be done, this is probably the best way to do it.

If this is truly supposed to be an adaptation of the Bobbie Gentry song, it makes utterly NO sense. I'm gay, so I'm usually sensitized toward picking gay references out of pop culture, but to make Billy Joe in the film struggle with his sexuality is fairly ridiculous.

If you read the lyrics to Bobbie Gentry's song, it seems pretty darn obvious that what the narrator and Billie Joe are throwing off the Tallahatchee Bridge is their out-of-wedlock baby.

Just Google search the lyrics, listen to the song, and see if that interpretation doesn't make much more sense than how the movie presents the story.

If this film had been directed by Truffaut or Bergman it would have swept Cannes. The fact that many viewers find it almost impossible to understand is testimony to the film's authenticity. As a life-long Southerner I feel compelled to state that anyone from the South over the age of 35 either knows or is one of these characters. The time period represented is one which lives in the memories of those alive today. Mississippi is particularly well drawn. I lived in Mississippi for four years and this film captures that distinct Mississippi flavor of charm,vindictiveness,religious observance,and sin. The bridge scene is what Southern pride and "redneck" are all about. Daddy just WON'T back up. One of the main themes of Southern art is the fact that many of the characters are so far from introspection and so close to instinctive, impulsive, animalistic behavior. When someone is "different" tragedy and/or myth tends to happen. Tennessee Williams mined that vein. Like the characters in this film, his people often dimly understood that they needed to either leave home or accept self-revelation in the confines of their environment. Most couldn't do either. The result is usually some sort of denial,death, or sacrifice. Great films/novels/short stories about the South have a sense of yearning and fatalism which I find very honest and moving. If you are into Russian literature, you are probably into Southern literature too! My thanks to Max for this beautiful film.

I remember seeing 'Ode to Billy Joe' when I was about twelve, and just starting to deal with the fact that I was gay. Growing up in rural Wisconsin I could relate very well to the negative attitudes towards gays, and find it very believable that a young gay person in that situation would consider killing themself. I also find it very believable that a young gay person would date a person of the opposite sex, just think about how many gay people do get married. Even though Billy Joe is a tragic figure I found the movie to be comforting, I think I took comfort in the fact that at least someone was talking about homosexuality, being Catholic my family never spoke about sex much less homosexuality and I think that is the way it was in most families in the seventies. Over the years I have thought of that movie often and I think at times it helped me keep my sanity, I would love to see it again!