“Our job, as we see it, is the same as his was in his lifetime, and that’s to get his work and his words out to as many people as possible.”
That’s what filmmaker Matt Harlock had to say about his documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story last year when the Chronicle spoke with him on the eve of the film’s SXSW 2010 premiere. (See “Rant, Revisited,” March 12, 2010.) Hicks, an underground comic underappreciated in his native U.S., was much bigger in Britain, so it makes sense that a pair of Britons, Harlock and co-director Paul Thomas, were the guys to get the first feature documentary about Hicks’ short but brilliant career up onscreen.
The pair will be in town tonight (4/20) to field questions at an Austin Film Society-sponsored screening. (Go here for ticket info.) The doc will then have a limited theatrical run at the Alamo South Lamar.
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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...
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