SYNOPSIS
Lincoln, New Mexico, 14 July 1881. 21-year-old outlaw Billy The Kid is gunned down by his friend, Sheriff Pat Garrett. A legend is born. And a rumour.
The film’s narrator sets off on a search for Billy The Kid’s shadow in New Mexico just as Lincoln County’s modern- day Sheriff is opening a murder case into the circumstances that led to the Kid’s escape from jail and his death. The Sheriff has one goal: finding the truth. Did Pat Garret kill Billy The Kid that night, or did Billy The Kid escape to Mexico as the century-old rumour has it?
Kris Kristofferson reprises his role from Sam Peckinpah’s timeless PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID to impersonate the outlaw as he rises from the dead to give his own account of events. Part poetic evocation, part road-movie and featuring fascinating interviews and footage from the classic film versions of the tale, including Peckinpah’s as well as Arthur Penn’s THE LEFT HANDED GUN (starring Paul Newman), REQUIEM FOR BILLY THE KID takes an entirely fresh outlook into the American West, both past and present. The ever-captivating American myth is revisited with a French twist and a zest of Rimbaud.
