DVDs

NED KELLY DIRECTED BY TONY RICHARDSON MGM DVD

RELEASED to coincide with the remake, the DVD of Tony Richardson's 1970 film Ned Kelly preserves an unusual moment in pop history. It was an exciting notion to cast Mick Jagger as the Australian outlaw who opposed unjust authorities—both as a son of Ireland and a proto pop-star. The ethical issues of Kelly's legend are addressed by regarding it as an example of folklore and the issues involved in creating "heroism."

Jagger isn't a trained actor like the deep-voiced, blandly handsome Heath Ledger, who stars in the remake; Jagger's histrionic efforts are almost as laughable as Madonna's. But all in all, Jagger is a riveting presence. Even the limp, foppish way he spits out the line "I'll make those stiff-necked unicorns wish they'd never heard the name Kelly!" is amazing for the sheer charisma it conveys. Jagger's Kelly exudes more than Ledger's dull, hairy vengeance; his swagger may not be Australia's macho ideal, but it is nothing if not alluring and appropriately puzzling.

Richardson, having made his reputation with memorable films of the Angry Young Man British dramas Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer, Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey and the overrated romp Tom Jones (the Shakespeare in Love of its day—but better), understood how to theatricalize seething working-class resentment. He didn't go the banal route of borrowing Hollywood's western outlaw cliches that today get swallowed as legitimate. Like Jagger, Richardson realized the egotism that feeds local heroism; together they explored Ned Kelly's glib tongue, his Robin Hood-like appeal to popular sentiment (even while showing that it was largely disingenuous).

In the shadow of the 1967 Bonnie and Clyde, which changed pop culture by simultaneously glamorizing criminals and identifying their behavior as part of the plight of the underclass (which is still felt in today's hiphop), Richardson and Jagger scrutinized stardom and criminality equally. This Ned Kelly works on more than one level. Along with the story of those "ill-counted youths" robbing banks, burning mortgages, building homemade armor and dying ignoble deaths, there is a continuous, ironic musical commentary of songs by Shel Silverstein sung by Waylon Jennings. ("And so you sons of bitches/I'll be spittin' down at you/While I'm chokin' in the shadow/Of the gallows.")

This Ned Kelly can be approached from several angles; it's from the moment when it wasn't enough for a film to simply be placed in the market with easy appeal to shills and dupes. This version actually speaks to the emotional and cultural conditions of the audience, challenging it. Although the fashion of Richardson's inquiry has changed, the terms of his exploration remain intelligent, cultivated, superior.