Their trauma, our entertainment: what happens to documentary subjects when the cameras leave?
The Guardian, February 12, 2023: Their trauma, our entertainment: what happens to documentary subjects when the cameras leave?
“In 2018, The Staircase was bought by Netflix. It became a number one documentary drama choice on the platform, available in 200 countries. The question of Michael Peterson’s guilt or innocence, never resolved – he avoided a second trial through a type of guilty plea in which the defendant asserts his innocence but admits that sufficient evidence exists to convict him – was raked over once again by a global audience with let’s-just-watch-one-more-before-bed habits. Social media was alive with theory and counter theory (one including the idea that Kathleen had been attacked by an owl).
“Last year, not to be outdone, Netflix’s rival HBO Max – available on Amazon Prime – bought the drama rights to The Staircase and created an eight-part family drama about the events starring Colin Firth as Peterson. The documentary director, Lestrade, who had sold the rights, claimed he felt betrayed by the HBO production, which played fast and loose with elements of the story, particularly a romantic relationship between the documentary’s editor, Sophie Brunet and Michael Peterson (the relationship did occur, but only began after Lestrade’s film had ended, and therefore did not, as the drama implied, tilt the documentary in Peterson’s favour). Somewhere in among all of this, the other family members, including Margie, all inadvertently world famous for close-up anguish, have had to try to make a life beyond that watch-all-episodes-now existence.
“That latter fact is – with due irony – the substance of another documentary, Subject, released in the UK on 3 March. It looks at what happens to participants in true-life dramas once the cameras have left and thoughtfully examines the duty of care that documentary makers owe to participants. The film, co-directed by Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexiera, was developed with Margie Ratliff, who is one of its co-producers. As well as her story, it features Jesse Friedman (wrongly imprisoned in Capturing the Friedmans), Mukunda Angulo (incarcerated with his siblings for more than a decade in the family apartment in The Wolfpack), Arthur Agee (child basketball hopeful of Hoop Dreams) and several others.”
Additional reading:
Filmmaker Magazine, June 11, 2022: “We Decided To Rewrite All of Our Consent Releases So That They Were More Favorable to Participants”: Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall on their Tribeca-premiering doc Subject
