PASSAGE THREE

(1) Whymake a film about Ned Kelly? More ingenious crimes than those committed by thereckless Australian bandit are reported every day. What is there in Ned Kellyto justify dragging the mesmeric Mick Jagger so far into the Australian bushand away from his natural haunts? The answer is that the film makers know wealways fall for a bandit, and Jagger is set to do for bold Ned Kelly whatBrando once did for the arrogant Emiliano Zapata.

(2) Abandit inhabits a special realm of legend where his deeds are embroidered byothers; where his death rather than his life is considered beyond belief; wherethe man who bring him to “justice” are afflicted with doubts about their role.

(3) Thebandits had a role to play as definite as that of the authorities who condemnedthem. These were men in conflict with authority, and, in the absence of stronglaw or the idea of loyal oppositions, they took to the hills. Even there,however, many of them obeyed certain unwritten rules.

(4)These robbers, who claimed to be something more than mere thieves, had incommon, firstly, a sense of loyalty and identity with the peasants they camefrom. They didn’t steal the peasant’s harvest; they did steal the lord’s.

(5)And certain characteristics seem to apply to “social bandits” whether they werein Sicily or Peru. They were generally young men under the age of marriage,predictably the best age for dissidence. Some were simply the surplus malepopulation who had to look for another source of income; others were runawayserfs or ex-soldiers; a minority, though the most interesting, were outstandingmen who were unwilling to accept the meek and passive role of peasant.

(6)They usually operated in bands between ten and twenty strong and relied forsurvival on difficult terrain and bad transport. And bandits prospered bestwhere authority was merely local—over the next hill and they were free. Unlikethe general run of peasantry they had a taste for flamboyant dress and gesture;but they usually shared the peasants’ religious beliefs and superstitions.

(7)The first sign of a man caught up in the Robin Hood syndrome was when hestarted out, forced into outlawry as a victim of injustice; and when he thenset out to “right wrongs”, first his own and then other people’s. The classicbandit then “takes from the rich and gives to the poor” in conformity with hisown sense of social injustice; he never kills except in self-defense orjustifiable revenge; he stays within his community and even returns to it if hecan to take up an honorable place; his people admire and help to protect him;he dies through the treason of one of them; he behaves as if invisible andinvulnerable; he is a “loyalist”, never the enemy of the king but only of thelocal oppressors.

(8)None of the bandits lived up fully to this image of the “noble robber” and formany the claim of larger motives was often a delusion.

(9)Yet amazingly, many of these violent men did behave at least half the time inaccordance with this idealist pattern. Pancho Villa in Mexico and SalvatoreGiuliano in Italy began their careers harshly victimized. Many of theircharitable acts later became legends.

(10)Far from being defeated in death, bandits’ reputation for invincibility wasoften strengthened by the manner of their dying. The “dirty little coward” whoshot Jesse James in the back is in every ballad about him, and the implicationis that nothing else could have brought Jesse down. Even when the policeclaimed the credit, as they tried to do at first with Giuliano’s death, thelocal people refused to believe it. And not just the bandit’s vitality promptsthe people to refuse to believe that their hero has died; his death would be insome way the death of hope.

(11)For the traditional “noble robber” represents an extremely primitive form ofsocial protest, perhaps the most primitive there is. He is an individual whorefuses to bend his back, that is all. Most protesters will eventually bebought over and persuaded to come to terms with the official power. That is whythe few who do not, or who are believed to have remained uncontaminated, haveso great and passionate a burden of admiration and longing laid upon them. Theycannot abolish oppression. But they do prove that justice is possible, thatpoor men need not be humble, helpless and meek.

(12)The bandit in the real world is rooted in peasant society and when its simpleagricultural system is left behind so is he. But the tales and legends, thebooks and films continue to appear for an audience that is neither peasant norbandit. In some ways the characters and deeds of the great bandits could soreadily be the stuff of grand opera—Don Jose in “Carmen” is based on theAndalusian bandit El Empranillo. But they are perhaps more at home in folksongs, in popular tales and the ritual dramas of films. When we sit in thedarkness of the cinema to watch the bold deeds of Ned Kelly we are caught up inadmiration for their strong individuality, their simple gesture of protest,their passion for justice and their confidence that they cannot be beaten. Thissustains us nearly as much as it did the almost hopeless people from whom theysprang.