Centering the Masses: My Favorite Things 3 – Billy Jack

On select Thursdays (and occasional Tuesdays), various friends of Visual Communications — individuals, filmmakers, activists, and stakeholders from Little Tokyo and various endangered communities — will screen feature-length films that have moved and influenced them, sparked their creativity, or prompted them into action. By looking at this selection, it’s clear that films speak to the human condition, or leave an indelible impression on the public. From romantic comedies, social melodramas, to action and adventure tales, cinema has never failed to offer pointed and wry commentary on matters such as race, class, social and economic strata. So let’s see what moves this small grouping of individuals…

All events below will be at 341 FSN (341 E 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

FREE ADMISSION. Capacity is limited. Informal seating is available on a first come, first served basis.

PROGRAM THREE | Tuesday, April 30, 2019  |  7:30 PM

Presented by ABRAHAM FERRER
BILLY JACK
(1971, Dir.: T.C. Frank)
Billy Jack, a “half-breed” American Navajo Indian, Green Beret Vietnam War veteran, and hapkido master, defends the hippie-themed Freedom School and its students from townspeople who do not understand or like the counterculture students. Trouble escalates when Bernard, son of a corrupt county chief, terrorizes a group of students and subsequently rapes the school’s director and kills a Native American Freedom School student. In order to set things right, Billy confronts Bernard, whom he catches in bed with a 13-year-old girl, and despite sustaining a crippling gunshot wound, administers his own brand of people’s “justice.”
114 minutes