STACK #121 Nov 2015

DVD&BD

FEATURE

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“I wanted to construct this drama in a way that plunged the viewer who knew nothing about the case and was encountering it for the first time, to sort of see this crime, to expect that justice would be served, and then to see this whole machinery that’s placed where there is an illusion that justice has been served, but it’s completely fabricated.” The chance to do things a little differently within this genre, and bring the audience to a place wherein they do not have an answer – just as it is in reality – was central to Egoyan’s approach. “You would expect that a drama would come to a conclusion, and yet we had permission with this story to actually take the risk of not putting the pieces together at all – of actually leaving the viewer in this very unconventional place of feeling that Egoyan based his screenplay on one of the many books written about theWest Memphis Three: Mara Leveritt’s novel Devil’s Knot , published in 2002. “We went through everything, really, but Mara Leveritt’s book is just so exhaustive,” Egoyan says. “Of course it has its own point of view, but [it] provides so much other material, and on these other suspects as well. And I think what I found intriguing about the book was not that it was pointing towards John [Byers, stepfather to victim Christopher Byers, who was long held by the public as a person of extreme interest in the case], but it was saying that there was so many other strands... and I thought, why don’t we illustrate these other strands in a way that documentaries cannot? The documentary cameras were not on these other suspects, but we can recreate them.” even through dramatic organisation, that sometimes there’s no answer.”

The story of theWest Memphis Three is so incredible that there have been numerous documentary- style films made about the real life tale. But now, 20 years after the horrific murders which triggered one of the most followed legislative battles in history, director Atom Egoyan thought the story was ripe for a dramatic retelling. I n 1993, the naked bodies of three eight-year-old boys – hog-tied with their own shoelaces – were found in a muddy ditch inWest Memphis, Arkansas.Three teenagers – Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley and Damien Echols – were arrested and charged with the murders, despite there being no evidence to connect them to the crime.They were troublemakers (in the shoplifting sense) and listened to heavy metal music, but when hearsay whispers of their interest in Satanism were spread around the town, a moral panic ensued which resulted in their conviction.They were jailed for 17 years, during which time much new, vindicating evidence came to light. Appeals were constantly launched, and many high profile icons joined the cause for their release (including Henry Rollins, Johnny Depp and director Peter Jackson). In 2011 they were released under a weird legal loophole called an ‘Alfred plea deal’, in which ‘guilty’ pleas are entered but innocence is maintained. Academy Award-nominated Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan was well acquainted

You’re allowed to do things with drama that you can’t do in a documentary

“I think you don’t punch into this without looking at the documentaries because they’ve been so crucial in bringing the case to light and certainly keeping it all alive,” Egoyan says. “But, I also think that you’re allowed to do things with drama that you can’t do in a documentary. I think that the documentaries all had a really clear agenda, which was first and foremost to show that the boys were innocent, but also to point at who might have done it and to move the process towards other suspects. And my feeling, honestly, after 20 years of this, and now making this drama, was that there are no answers.” Still, Egoyan sees that a lack of definitive truth as to who committed the crime shouldn’t stop the story’s depths being plumbed in a dramatic, semi-fictional way. “What happened 20 years ago continues to be of interest because it’s such an extraordinary story of what happens when there is no closure,” he explains.

with these events, and the various documentaries made about them, before he decided to helm the dramatisation Devil’s Knot .

Devil’s Knot is out on November 19

NOVEMBER 2014 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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