Cast (Parts Three and Four):
Interviews and archival footage of various individuals:
Archival footage: O. J. Simpson, Johnnie Cochran, Al Cowlings, Christopher Darden, Ron Goldman, Judge Lance Ito, Robert Kardashian, Nicole Brown Simpson, Robert Shapiro, among others.
Interview: Mike Albanese, F. Lee Bailey, Danny Bakewell, Carrie Bess, Yolanda Crawford, Marcia Clark, Carl Douglas, Mark Fuhrman, Gil Garcetti, Mike Gilbert, Fred Goldman, Tom Lange, Jim Newton, Barry Scheck, Ron Shipp, Zoey Tur, among others. Directed by Ezra Edelman.
Review:
Part Three of O.J.: Made in America starts exactly where one knows it will go: midnight on June 13, 1994, where two bodies are discovered at 875 South Bundy Drive in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. No matter the knowledge one has of the murder case of that day, it does not make the presentation of finding the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman (as photographed on discovery) any less shocking. The days that followed the murders on June 12 are the heart of the entire documentary in showing just what the Simpson case meant to the public eye in terms of seeing an epic fall happen on television to millions of viewers. Part Three isn't just an expression of showing the famous white Ford Bronco chase as the key step in forming reality television, of course, because one cannot have a chase without detailing the investigation that formed between all of that. You hear both the procession of information from detectives such as Tom Lange to the procession of shock and grief from Ron Goldman.
The June 17 chase shows the voices of the time and now in a mesh that manages to be distinct from the aforementioned previous ESPN documentary on the day that makes it keenly aware of how impactful the moment was in the eyes of those who saw it (which sees 1994 footage and current-day footage of Dave Gascon). This involves people such as Zoey Tur (who covered the chase by helicopter) that notes the carnival-like atmosphere that arose from the viewing of Cowlings and Simpson driving the Bronco across the city. The chase is the chase, a baffling display of just how absorbed people really can become in something. I think these two parts of the film spur the most discussion when it comes to the art of "talking to the screen as if you were there with the talking head". In other words, it is a very reactive center to the whole experience, one that arouses your senses to look back on the events of the past with useful context that makes what might seem routine when it comes to archival footage into the most captivating in interest. It runs the gamut of generating emotions from its viewer in the montage of voices old and new to the growing circus that was 1994. There will likely never be a chase on the scale left by the Simpson chase and there may never be a trial that consumed the American consciousness as the Simpson trial did in part because of how it stoked insatiable desire (others might say insatiable insanity) for the 24-hour news cycle. Hell, one probably already had it in mind when they saw how much people wanted to watch shows that featured real-life law enforcement with Cops, but the coverage of OJ and the trial took everything to a new level that still seems so freshly ingrained in our culture. It is as if the barriers of shame were suddenly ripped away and replaced with two paper-thin ones that both said "famous" on them. Anyone can be famous, but those definitions can only mean so much when people like Judge Lance Ito can be turned into a comedy bit for late-night television (with high-powered prosecutors and defense lawyers, he certainly comes off in the archival footage as seemingly overwhelmed but given that he allowed cameras for cases involving Charles Keating, it is not surprising). You could probably count on multiple hands just how many people involved in the case that ended up writing a book about the trial in some sort of form.
It should be noted that Christopher Darden did not wish to participate in this documentary. Nothing is really lost there, unless having another perspective of a prosecutor besides the lead in Marcia Clark (left unmentioned in the documentary is that Darden was brought in to replace William Hodgman as co-prosecutor because Hodgman had collapsed with chest pains after opening statements. Hodgman survived and is interviewed for this film). So, yes, one is fascinated in hearing the statements from people like Clark or Gil Garcetti (District Attorney of Los Angeles County) when it comes to the perspective of people who saw the case as they felt it was. This of course was the belief that the facts would result in one certain verdict and the resulting nightmare that came with the media circus that was the trial (which saw Darden make likely the most foolish decision in the history of televised cases with the trying of the glove, which no one, probably not even Darden, could defend). Clark may reflect well in terms of seeing like the kind of sharp tack in insight while relating the hell that was when it comes to trial that makes her perspective more than just being the perspective of the failed prosecutor. Moments are also spent with two jurors from the trial (Carrie Bess and Yolanda Crawford), which went through a long process of selection to try and select the ideal people that would have to be in a courtroom for months in downtown Los Angeles (keep in mind, the trial promising to go on for months resulted in a certain type of jury pool, which ended up seeing a jury sequestered for 265 days). Various people who testified in the trial are interviewed as well, namely with Mark Fuhrman, who casts a long shadow over the proceedings in the most evident of ways, one that certainly lends himself as an living example of the old saying "actions speak louder than words" (as much as one would say of the sacrificial lamb of the defense that got accused on perjury). This probably works as well to describe Barry Schenk, a co-founder of the Innocence Project (committed to exonerating people falsely convicted by using DNA testing) who went on to put the biggest display of speculation of flawed DNA testing in one case.
And then of course there is the interviewing of certain surviving members of the defense, dubbed the "Dream Team" and headlined by in Carl Douglas, Barry Schenk, and F. Lee Bailey, for which one will see clips of Johnnie Cochran (who died in 2005) and still-living Robert Shapiro and Alan Dershowitz (although it is apparent even more so in 2023 that no one really wants to hear about or talk from Alan Dershowitz, which is saying something when hearing from once famous-turned-disbarred lawyer Bailey). You hear about their tactics to turn the case into an indictment of the whole Los Angeles Police Department with regards to treating evidence and so on. To relate this back to film for a moment, film director Milos Forman likely summed it up best when he once described O.J.'s defense as "Because you are not perfect, O.J. is innocent." Hearing about the exploits of Cochran as a civil rights defender prior to the case results in quite the interesting effect when snippets of his closing argument (which had moments such as equating Fuhrmann to Hitler) are shown to us. Douglas reflects well among most, if not all of the interviewees in terms of insight. Edelman lets the words of the speakers (1994 or 2016) speak for themselves when it comes to the power of high-priced (and clever) lawyers. Now more than ever, Americans consume entertainment on a wide scale, and it seems that we are consumed with following tragedy wherever it may lead. For people involved in tragedy, it is just their lives, but for others, it is, well, the new focal point of one's time. We do not lose sight of the people that were viciously murdered on that day in June 1994 or the people who found themselves at the face of the cameras (such as Ron Shipp, another surficial lamb to the defense). The trial may have muddled the victims into the background for spectacle, but that doesn't mean we forget. One might think that I am not talking much about Simpson with regards to this review, but it only goes to show the perspective that arises from that fact that the documentary is really not so much about him as it is about us, even as we see more examples of the facades that he put in front of the camera as opposed to when he is not on camera, as if he is wondering whether the metaphorical Faustian bargain is about to strike back in his face. Simpson has had a camera on him for decades, and the attention is more apparent from the eyes of the world, but at what cost now? (especially considering that he went so far as to sign parts of a jersey when in jail, which made for a strange booming market)
In the end, the third and fourth part of O.J.: Made in America is the heart of the movie when it comes to showing the America we live in now, since it essentially was the precursor for what we call reality television. It is the insanity of ourselves that is really put into display here more so than the actual case, but it is the most important thing to consider when dealing with a documentary that demonstrates the very nature of just how far one can go down the rabbit hole in connections by how intricate it weaves the events of 1994 and 1995. Sure, you can search contemporary articles of the time just to see the perspective of people becoming "junkies" for the trial, or you can see it for yourself with these two parts of the documentary.
Tomorrow: Part Five.
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