Indeed, as Billy Mitchell says, the movie The King of Kong does paint him as ‘a son of a gun’. Throughout the movie, there is not a single scene of Billy playing Donkey Kong neither in private much less in front of a crowd. Given what he says about a great player as someone who has to perform well on demand, it definitely let the audience to believe that Billy was an ex-champion who is way past his era. Portrayed as quite an egoist, it is ironic that Billy comes across as a competition dodger, who ducks every chance he has to play Steve Wiebe head to head.
In the articles, Billy justifies his reluctance to compete at the time of the movie because he “hadn’t played Donkey Kong for a half-year at that point and didn’t see the sense of trying to compete.” Even so, it does not explain his dodging around his own restaurant when Steve is there, or refusal to show up even when Steve travels all the way to an arcade event 20 minutes away from Billy’s home in Florida. This gives us further insight into Billy’s intriguing character, specifically his pride. He is so convinced that he is at the top of his game that he does not want to risk the embarrassment of playing the game in front of an audience and losing to Steve. To Billy, ignorance is bliss. If he cannot know for sure that he would beat Steve, he’d rather not play.
There is only so much of a person’s character that can be exaggerated. I think Billy Mitchell must have done something to piss the directors off, hence his villain part in the movie. It is interesting to note how the camera always lingers on after a person is done talking, to capture the subtle facial expressions and emotions of the person. Two such scenes that I find the most interesting is on Steve and Billy. In the first scene, the camera lingers on Steve’s face after he talks about being disappointed that his Donkey Kong high score was rejected, and we could see tears running down his face. This, to me, further emphasizes Steve’s frustration with the system and his naivety, something the audience can related to. In the second scene, Steve Sanders, Billy’s best friend, is shown talking about Steve Wiebe, but when Billy is asked to comment, he simply says, “I’m not familiar enough with this situation.” Even when Steve Sanders was talking, the camera is directed towards Billy’s face and iron glare, and lingers on their faces for a good 10 seconds. I find this a very effective and creative technique that the directors used to speak the character’s minds without words.
However,we should give the man credit where credit is due. On the 25th anniversary of his record-shattering performance that remained unbeatable for more than a decade, Billy played live, in front of a large audience, including the referees and scorekeeper of Twin Galaxies. He reclaimed the world record at Donkey Kong with a score of 1050200, a narrow margin from Steve’s previous world record, 1049100. True to his nature, Billy was then quoted on mtv.com saying, “I’m Billy Mitchell. I don’t need to run up the score. I just want to put one in the win column. I want to make it competitive. I didn’t want to make it too tough.” So much for pride coming before a fall.
