ARMCHAIR DETECTIVES

After hearing so much said about the series MAKING A MURDERER I finally got around to watching it. Well at this point most of it anyway since I still have 2 more episodes left. The series has so many people talking that finding anyone who hasn’t at least heard about the show is miraculous in itself. It has spawned supporters for its subject, Steven Avery, as well as a petition for his pardon.

But the really scary thing about this for me is that people are basing all of this on what they were presented in a 10 hour documentary. Not on actually seeing the evidence, not on hearing what was said in court or on transcripts of that trial but on what two people felt you needed to see, a summarized version of that trial instead.

It scares me because I studied film in college and have been an avid film viewer for decades. I know that a combination of many things are used to bring out emotions and thoughts to viewers. When you combine story and acting and music and editing you create feelings in people. If you don’t believe this watch the shower scene in PSYCHO. Watch it without sound first and pause it every few seconds. Then watch it straight through with the sound turned up. You will know what is coming and yet an unease will settle in your stomach. That’s the transformative effect of editing and sound on what was written to make you feel that way.

Some will say “Well that’s a movie, that’s not real life and this is reality.” To an extent you’re right. This isn’t a story that was written from the mind of someone. This is based on what happened to real living and breathing people. But don’t think it wasn’t scripted. Don’t think all of those tools that film makes have in their hands haven’t been used to manipulate you and your emotions. It was done this way and done purposely to sway your opinion, to make you feel the way the film makers want you to feel.

There are a number of things that have bothered me with this series and those that think it paints a portrait of an innocent man done wrong. It began when I heard the dulcet tones of music used when describing Steven Avery in the very first episode while pictures of a blonde haired little boy appeared on screen. It establishes him as a sweet little child, an innocent destined for a cold cruel world. That theme carried through nearly every episode that follows. He’s innocent, he’s been wronged, he’s never done a bad thing in his life. At least as presented by these film makers.

But what about the cat? Maybe you forgot about the cat. In the movie the incident is mentioned by Avery talking about how at a bonfire a cat jumped over it and caught fire. What the film makers decided to leave out was the fact that Avery had doused the cat with gasoline and tossed it on the fire. The tale takes on a whole different aspect when presented that way. Even more so when behaviorists connect this sort of activity to sociopaths.

How about the other crimes he was arrested for and convicted of, I mean other than the rape charge he was wrongfully convicted of? You mean you don’t know about that? You didn’t know that he was arrested for burglary when he was younger? Or that he was charged with animal cruelty for the cat incident?  I’m sure that the film makers thought this would just muddy the waters when it came to portraying him as innocent and that it would have had been no reason for the local police to consider him a suspect in any other crimes.

There was plenty of other things omitted by the film makers as well. There was DNA evidence found on the trunk latch of the car, not blood evidence which the defense lawyers constantly impugned, but sweat that was found there that belonged to Avery. If he never went near her that day as he claims how did it get there? And if the police planted that as well are you saying that they were walking around carrying his blood AND a vial of his sweat?

How about the fact that Halbach told a friend that Avery had come to the door wearing only a towel on a previous visit and that he made her uncomfortable? Could that have made her not want to be the photographer that went to his property? So why did he request her as that photographer? What about the fact that he called her cell phone three times that day? Two of those times he did so using a feature that blocked his ID from her phone. The third was after she was already dead. His lawyers don’t see a reason for him to call if he had her phone. Could it not have been to set up a defense? And that cell phone. It was found, along with her camera, in the burn barrel on his property. How did that get there? His lawyers ask why he would do throw it in his own burn barrel while at the same time touting the fact that he only had a 70 IQ level. None of this was in the film.

The question is raised in the film about why he would have put her body into the back of her car. That would seem odd if it were not for the part left out about how he at first considered dumping her body in the nearby pond before deciding it wasn’t deep enough. But that was left out.

A major portion of the film discusses the vial of blood found by the defense lawyers. It is portrayed as a major find that will blow the case out of the water. They make the claim that Det. Lenk was able to take blood from that vial and put it into Halbach’s car in order to frame Avery. Here again what is left out is the fact that a nurse said that she was the one who made the hole in the end of the vial. Not only that the question of how blood gets into the vial, perhaps via injecting it into the vial, is never seen in the film.

Perhaps the most damning thing to me concerning the makers of this series is the words of the film makers themselves. As I watched and with all the controversy surrounding the series I began to wonder, what would be the motivation of these film makers to not just make this series but to take the stand that they did as well? A search on google resulted in very little to be found about them. I found that as mystifying as the evidence in this film. Why wouldn’t it be easy to find out what their beliefs were and where they stood on various issues? It would be as easy for me to claim that they set out motivated to take on the justice system as it is for the defense attorneys in the Avery case to claim that everyone with the exception of Steven Avery could have been the murderer of Teresa Halbach.

What motivated them to do this series? Even more so what motivated them to move to Wisconsin and spend ten years of their lives to make this series? And who funded this series? Who paid their bills for ten years? I couldn’t find answers to any of those questions but they should be of concern for anyone thinking their seeing an unbiased item here.  

But then I saw another show about the case on the ID network. In that documentary they were discussing the case and the controversy surrounding it caused by this series. They included a brief clip of an interview with the film makers where they said something that bothered me. Their direct quote was “We thought Steven Avery would be an amazing window through which to look at the system.” Could it be that the goal from the start was to implicate the justice system as being flawed? I’m not saying that it isn’t or wasn’t in this case, there were plenty of flaws on display. But is that reason enough to ignore the culminated evidence in the case? Is it reason enough to omit evidence that was found in order to make a film that fits your needs rather than presents ALL of the facts?

They claimed there just wasn’t enough time to include all of what was found or that happened in the trial. Well how about if a few of those shots of Avery as a child were left out and replaced with evidence that would allow the viewer to make up their own mind about his guilt or innocence? How about leaving out or shortening the number of scenes where we establish the sadness that his family is going through throughout this trial? Let’s leave out the sad music and show the facts, all of the facts, before we claim that there just wasn’t enough time. Especially when there is 10 hours in which to present those facts and that evidence.

Documentary film makers these days are perhaps some of the most manipulative people to be found, even more so than advertising executives. They begin their quest to make a movie with the end rather than the beginning, not seeking the truth but beginning with their own preconceived notions and then molding their film around that idea. That makes their movies less true documentaries to me and more promotional pieces instead.

Michael Moore makes documentaries and even won an Oscar for one, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, where he looked at gun violence in this country. So much of that film has been debunked and yet his Oscar still stands. The opening sequence features Moore going into a bank that promises a free gun if you start an account with him. He opens the account, fills out a form, walks over to a desk where they place the gun in his hand at which point he questions the intelligence of a bank that will give you a gun right there in the bank. Except that’s not what really happened. The bank gives you a gun but only after you fill out the paperwork and go through the required background check that the sale of guns requires. It then issues you a receipt after passing that check, which takes several days, that you then take to a warehouse located several blocks away from the bank to get your gun. Moore shot the sequence he portrays as happening all at once over several days and then edited it together to suit his narrative. And the gun they handed him? A display model in the bank with no firing pin in it, not the one he got for starting the account. But if you watched that film you too would have thought the bank was crazy for giving out free guns right there in the bank on the same day you opened an account. What really happened was manipulated to suit his end result.

The movie GASLAND takes a negative look at the practice of fracking. In that documentary is the much played scene where a couple light their tap water on fire as it comes out of the tap claiming it happened because of natural gas leaking into their tap water because of fracking. It’s enough to make you question why anyone would even consider fracking. But then if you watch the film FRACKNATION you have a film maker who claims to want the truth. He finds out that the couple who showed that flaming faucet had the problem long before any fracking was going on. They weren’t the only ones. But they were the only ones trying to sue the fracking company. And they were the only ones most of the neighbors didn’t get along with. A number of other claims made in GASLAND are debunked as well. And when the director of GASLAND is questioned he ignores those questions or laughs off those who ask claiming their biased. Well, yeah, if what they’re after is the truth rather than to take up a cause then they are.

In the end I have no idea if Steven Avery is guilty or not. I have no idea because I wasn’t on that jury. I have no idea because I didn’t see all of the evidence that was presented. I have no idea because I didn’t hear all of those called to the stand speak. I have no idea because I wasn’t in that court room on a daily basis. For viewers of this show all you have to go on is what the film makers choose to show or tell you. That the things they chose to exclude could cause you to perhaps consider the subject of the film guilty speaks volumes. That they did so knowingly and with the intent of swaying your beliefs for me says more about the film makers than it does the prosecutors in this case.

Was there sloppy handling of evidence? Yes. Did the police involved act in a questionable manner? Yes. Was evidence planted? Who knows for sure? But is it also possible that Steven Avery did indeed kill Teresa Halbach? Yes. But all of us are nothing more than armchair detectives basing our decisions not on all of the evidence but on a movie.

One more thing no one seems to discuss in this show. The victim. I mean the real victim, the one who is now deceased. So much attention is given to Steven Avery while Teresa Halbach seems more like a footnote here. That’s a shame. Because this woman is no longer with us. She’s not here to tell us who did or did not take her life, who burned her body to ash. That’s a shame. Hours and ten years were spent by these film makers to prove that Steven Avery was sent to prison unjustly but scant time seems to have been spent finding justice for Teresa Halbach. In my mind that’s just wrong.