I think the one modern true crime show/movie that comes close to not being cynical is Stefano Sollima's The Monster of Florence.
It's based on a murderer that was never found, but follows threads of famous suspects every season, so there is no killer, technically. Sollima films the whole thing as a fucked up art film, it features fucked up stories, but he always tries to push the intelectual side of it. The true horror in that case is realizing that any italian man, due to misoginy, cowardice or repressed thoughts, could be the killer, and with that comes anger.
His movie Suburra is similar to this. They arent about empathizing with the victims (he trusts the audience), but about showing you things that take you out of your confort zone and inviting you reflect and I think his coldness is why most people see him as more right wing than he actually is.
It's not a perfect series, but it's one of the better attempts at an ethical true crime production because it isnt hipocritical and understands that the audience isnt there to honor some random teenager. In a way, it's a good exemple of modern exploitation cinema.
You know, it's interesting, I think even exploitation films where the MO is to make the audience flinch through the entire production is more ethical than "crimeslop." I don't have a problem with covering these stories per se, it's more the way they're covered.
I am reminded of the saying from Saint Sophrony of Essex - “Stand on the edge of the abyss and when you feel that it is beyond your strength, break off and have a cup of tea.”
In Orthodox Christianity we continue to pray for the dead and I think, if nothing else, this forces us to remember them as "people" - full, whole identies.
I recall watching a documentary about a serial killer in the USA who targetted women in their houses and there were lengthy interviews with the officers who ran the case for years including the toll it took on their family lives. They got him in the end. (I forget the title of the doco)
The thing that struck me was that right at the end, the final voice-over interview was one of the detectives who was a devout Catholic. He said that over time his family life got back in balance and also, fascinatingly, he said that every night when he prays, he goes through a list of the departed and that the last name on the list is "xxxx"(the perpetrator in the doco) (again, I'll update this if I remember).
My point is that if for whatever reason we find ourselves seeing humans as something to be consumed or "death" as something "other that death" we need to find a way to pause, regather that which has become fragmented, draw it back to the center, and honour the "person".
This really reminded me of a podcast episode I listened to last night, the latest episode of Subject to Power, where Jane Caputi was interviewed about her book she wrote nearly 40 years ago, The Age of Sex Crimes. The folk tale theme in reference to murderers was explored in a parallel way.
I also appreciated the call out on true crime consumption, something I chose to limit years ago.
I used to consume my own fair share of it, with the excuse/feeling that as a member of the more physically vulnerable sex, a sort of intimate, grotesque understanding of the monstrous predator figure would give me some amount of survival advantage or the ability to suss out a potential problem of a male from a benign one.
I stopped listening to and watching true crime because it actually only made me more fearful than is necessary. I realized my intuition is pretty spot on as is, no gruesome details of crimes needed to hone it. And also for this reason, along with the increased level of fear and suspicion, there ironically was a desensitization. That second death factor is real, as in the telling of these stories the victims of crime who no longer can speak for themselves shift simply into a kind of folk tale character, a necessary tool of the tale, but more mythic and less human.
The Wendigo lens catches appetite. It misses at least one other pathway: from internal death imagery, to gore spectatorship, to enactment. Each rung is a stronger dissociation tool for the same underlying pain. This isn't the only route to violence — some perpetrators are appetite-driven, some ideological, some instrumental, some sadistic from the start. But collapsing all of them into one appetite-shaped Wendigo obscures what actually distinguishes them.
The diagnostic question isn't whether consumption is voyeurism or justice. It's whether a subject in unbearable pain can find lower-rung regulation elsewhere before tolerance forces them upward — and whether the perpetrator you're looking at even came from that pathway in the first place
If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
I agree. I do think you can step back far enough to regain your humanity though
Important text.
I think the one modern true crime show/movie that comes close to not being cynical is Stefano Sollima's The Monster of Florence.
It's based on a murderer that was never found, but follows threads of famous suspects every season, so there is no killer, technically. Sollima films the whole thing as a fucked up art film, it features fucked up stories, but he always tries to push the intelectual side of it. The true horror in that case is realizing that any italian man, due to misoginy, cowardice or repressed thoughts, could be the killer, and with that comes anger.
His movie Suburra is similar to this. They arent about empathizing with the victims (he trusts the audience), but about showing you things that take you out of your confort zone and inviting you reflect and I think his coldness is why most people see him as more right wing than he actually is.
It's not a perfect series, but it's one of the better attempts at an ethical true crime production because it isnt hipocritical and understands that the audience isnt there to honor some random teenager. In a way, it's a good exemple of modern exploitation cinema.
You know, it's interesting, I think even exploitation films where the MO is to make the audience flinch through the entire production is more ethical than "crimeslop." I don't have a problem with covering these stories per se, it's more the way they're covered.
Very insightful.
I am reminded of the saying from Saint Sophrony of Essex - “Stand on the edge of the abyss and when you feel that it is beyond your strength, break off and have a cup of tea.”
In Orthodox Christianity we continue to pray for the dead and I think, if nothing else, this forces us to remember them as "people" - full, whole identies.
I recall watching a documentary about a serial killer in the USA who targetted women in their houses and there were lengthy interviews with the officers who ran the case for years including the toll it took on their family lives. They got him in the end. (I forget the title of the doco)
The thing that struck me was that right at the end, the final voice-over interview was one of the detectives who was a devout Catholic. He said that over time his family life got back in balance and also, fascinatingly, he said that every night when he prays, he goes through a list of the departed and that the last name on the list is "xxxx"(the perpetrator in the doco) (again, I'll update this if I remember).
My point is that if for whatever reason we find ourselves seeing humans as something to be consumed or "death" as something "other that death" we need to find a way to pause, regather that which has become fragmented, draw it back to the center, and honour the "person".
This really reminded me of a podcast episode I listened to last night, the latest episode of Subject to Power, where Jane Caputi was interviewed about her book she wrote nearly 40 years ago, The Age of Sex Crimes. The folk tale theme in reference to murderers was explored in a parallel way.
I also appreciated the call out on true crime consumption, something I chose to limit years ago.
I used to consume my own fair share of it, with the excuse/feeling that as a member of the more physically vulnerable sex, a sort of intimate, grotesque understanding of the monstrous predator figure would give me some amount of survival advantage or the ability to suss out a potential problem of a male from a benign one.
I stopped listening to and watching true crime because it actually only made me more fearful than is necessary. I realized my intuition is pretty spot on as is, no gruesome details of crimes needed to hone it. And also for this reason, along with the increased level of fear and suspicion, there ironically was a desensitization. That second death factor is real, as in the telling of these stories the victims of crime who no longer can speak for themselves shift simply into a kind of folk tale character, a necessary tool of the tale, but more mythic and less human.
The Wendigo lens catches appetite. It misses at least one other pathway: from internal death imagery, to gore spectatorship, to enactment. Each rung is a stronger dissociation tool for the same underlying pain. This isn't the only route to violence — some perpetrators are appetite-driven, some ideological, some instrumental, some sadistic from the start. But collapsing all of them into one appetite-shaped Wendigo obscures what actually distinguishes them.
The diagnostic question isn't whether consumption is voyeurism or justice. It's whether a subject in unbearable pain can find lower-rung regulation elsewhere before tolerance forces them upward — and whether the perpetrator you're looking at even came from that pathway in the first place
Sure -- I agree there are different types.