Bill Daniel - Who is Bozo Texino? Film Still 7

Product description

Bill Daniel (1959, Texas)

His film, Who is Bozo Texino? the secret history of Hobo Graffiti, chronicles the search for the source of a ubiquitous and mythic rail graffiti, a drawing seen on railcars for over 80 years— a simple sketch of a character with an infinity-shaped hat and the scrawled moniker, “Bozo Texino” — a drawing seen on railcars for over 80 years.

Daniel’s gritty black and white film uncovers a secret society and it’s underground universe of hobo and rail worker graffiti, and includes interviews with legendary boxcar artists Colossus of Roads, Coaltrain, Herby, and The Rambler. Filming over a sixteen year period, Daniel rode freights across the West carrying a Super-8 sound camera and a 16mm Bolex. During his quest, he discovered the roots of a folkloric tradition that has gone mostly unnoticed for a century. Taking inspiration from Beat artists, Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac, the film functions as both a sub-cultural documentary and a stylized fable on wanderlust and outsider identity.