Directed by:
Andrew JareckiCast:
Kirsten Dunst, Andrew Jarecki, Frank Langella, Marc Smerling, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar (a.f.), Kim Lankford, Kevin J. Hynes, Zachary Stuart-Pontier (more)Seasons(2) / Episodes(12)
Plots(1)
This documentary series exposes long-buried information about a series of unsolved crimes, and the man suspected of being at its center - Robert Durst, scion of New York's billionaire Durst family - and was made with his full cooperation. A groundbreaking six-part documentary event directed and produced by Andrew Jarecki and produced and shot by Marc Smerling, this series exposes long-buried information discovered during their seven-year investigation of a series of unsolved crimes, and the man suspected of being at its center - Robert Durst, scion of New York's billionaire Durst family - and was made with his full cooperation. Brilliant, reclusive and the subject of relentless media scrutiny, Durst has never spoken publicly - until now. During exclusive interviews with Jarecki, he talks with startling candor, revealing secrets of a case that has baffled authorities for 30 years. Long suspected in the 1982 disappearance of his beautiful young wife in New York, the 2000 murder of the key witness in the case in Beverly Hills, and the subsequent murder and dismemberment of a neighbor in Galveston, Tex., Durst has consistently maintained his innocence, and remains a free man today. This unprecedented documentary event tracks Jarecki as he develops a relationship with Durst, unearthing thousands of pages of hidden documents, police files, key witnesses, never-before-seen footage and private prison recordings. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (4)
When I saw the first episode on HBO by chance, I couldn’t just leave it until I’ve been told the whole story. Robert Durst was weird since the first confrontation with the director Andrew Jarecki and I was simply curious where this documentary would lead. And it was going in a direction that made me stare with eyes wide open. In the future, if I ever want to think of a documentary with a very high informative value for psychologists which also does the commendable job of uncovering the truth, I will remember this crime documentary. One would not believe it is all real, due to Jarecki’s excellent editing and the way he put it all together. This documentary is simply a job well done and if you can stay till the end, you will be rewarded with a shocking climax that you do not get to see elsewhere. It was such a shock it made me speechless and I cannot imagine what the director Jarecki was feeling. Nevertheless, hats off to the director who went all in into this project and thanks again to HBO that it was part of it. If anything has any meaning in the filmmaking industry, then it’s this six-episode docuseries.
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You have to clear the dust out of the place in your heart for 60-year-old men on the run from the police who can't think of a better disguise than a mute old lady. Who, when they disguise themselves by shaving their heads, take off their eyebrows as well for good measure, and even when they have forty grand in cash in their car and the police in fifty states are on the lookout for them, they'll go to the convenience store for a chicken sandwich because fuck you, that's why. Piecing together the backstory and psychological profile of an individual who is in such disdain of mainstream society that even his privileged status as a millionaire heir doesn't quench the urge to smoke weed with some Texas white trash in the middle of nowhere or just ride around the world with a stranger's identity, ideally that of the person he chopped up like a lego minifig the day before, well that’s fun just as a matter of principle. The escapades of this confused psychopath, who deftly slips out of any trouble, if only because his rich developer family keeps covering his ass so he doesn't ruin their brand, then decades later takes it upon himself to tell his story, combined with his inability to remember to take the microphone off when he has to mutter to himself what a murderous piece of shit he is, that is definitely worth a documentary. A single, two-hour one, cut down to get rid of the sensationalist neighborhood monologues, repeated speculation, and cheaply shot scenes. Judging by the way Jarecki always got fancied up for those interviews, I was expecting a punchline at the end that he's actually been trying to sell Durst a car the whole time.
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Without wanting to downplay the creative input, it must be said that Jarecki got tremendously lucky with his “material”. Thanks to his past, nature and tics, Robert Dust is such a dramatically and psychologically satisfying character that you wonder whether he’s being played by Dustin Hoffman in great make-up according to a pre-written screenplay with precisely timed twists. The final toilet confession is exactly the jaw-dropping moment that many screenwriters dream of. That doesn’t mean that the screenplay of the series was simply written by life. The distribution of information, which is not always the most positive (jumps in time instead of a continuous build-up), contributes significantly to the suspenseful nature of the narrative. Even though dull talking heads comprise the core of every episode, the gradual addition of other pieces of the puzzle – using suggestive scripted scenes (in which, as in Zodiac, we never see the killer’s face), news footage, trial videos and police interrogations – keeps us in anticipation of the big reveal. It is thus not merely a standard reconstruction of crimes committed long ago, but also a very contemporary piece of investigative reporting. As in detective stories, returning to the past serves to catch a killer who still remains free. More precisely, Jarecki creates a story in which he will be the one to help uncover and catch the killer. The crime-series stylisation and the desire to transform reality into a compelling story are supported by the bleak opening titles (along the lines of True Detective), the prioritisation of emotion over plain facts, the attempt to end every individual episode with a cliffhanger and the complicated planning of the second encounter (the proper capture of which on camera seems to be more important to the director than the administering of justice). As a detective series, The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst works superbly and, mainly, it doesn’t raise uncomfortable questions about the ethics of documentary filmmaking. Though Jarecki states in the final episode that he’s concerned with brining a criminal to justice, that does not disguise the parasitic nature of his actions. He chose to use the trust that Durst has placed in him to make a series based on our fascination with murderers and deranged individuals. What I found lacking on his part was a greater willingness to reflect his own position, because when hidden behind the camera, he comes across exactly as he fears he will seem to Durst during the second interview, which is to say cold, like a journalist who is hungry for sensationalism and looking to exploit someone’s life – whether that of a murderer or of an innocent person – for a good story that fills a certain demand. If he had turned the camera on himself more times and tried to answer the question of why he was doing this, and if he hadn’t been afraid to confront the viewer with a similar question (why do we so enjoy watching this?), The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst could have been an essential documentary comparable to The Thin Blue Line. 80%
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There is no point in denying that sometimes it is almost too tendentious and manipulative. Especially when the author gradually loses distance during those seven years and makes some questionable (un) ethical decisions in order to achieve his goal. But... But thanks to that, it's so fascinating to watch. As Jarecki becomes more and more obsessed with this subject the more from gives up from being an impartial witness of the "procedural process of clarifying the circumstances of a murder" and becomes unprecedentedly active in his investigative role of the main driver of events, whose primary goal is to be the one who reveals/convicts the culprit once and for all. And these events are really something, because something SO fascinating, unbelievable, exciting and extremely disturbing and chilling is quite rare. You simply cannot resist and sooner or later you start having doubts whether it is a brilliant mystification, because Durst's actions and life story shocks with their "complexity" that easily overshadow all the over the top Nordic thrillers about the black sheep of a wealthy family who are elusive serial killers thanks to impenetrable walls in the form of billions in the bank. In any case, thanks to the above, it would have not been less interesting if a documentary filmmaker had watched Jarecki impartially over time during the filming of this one.
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