Roger Ebert once described the movies as a machine that generates empathy and if that’s the case, documentaries are the most efficient kind. We leave our insulated little bubble and become intimately familiar with people we'd otherwise never encounter, usually concluding with a much greater understanding of them: their joy, their sorrow, or oftentimes their intense anger.
Netflix’s Making a Murderer has become an instant phenomenon and that’s not just because the facts of the case are so outrageous on the surface; it’s because this is a truly compelling piece of filmmaking made by two masters who understand how to develop real life characters using skillful editing.
Making a Murderer follows the story of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man sent to prison for 18 years for a crime he did not commit. That was later proven by DNA evidence and so Avery was exonerated… only to find himself accused of murder and thrown back in jail years later. By chronicling the 2005 trial and its aftermath, this documentary exposes the failures of our criminal justice system and in the end, heavily implies that Avery has been wrongfully convicted for a second time.
Everyone is talking about the case itself, whether Avery is guilty, what the next step is and how annoyed they were by Ken Kratz's voice. But it’s also worth examining the actual craftsmanship of what basically amounts to a 10-hour film. What made it so watchable even to viewers not usually drawn to true crime and why are audiences having such a visceral reaction to the material?
A key decision was made on the part of filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos to keep in the final cut all of the little quirks that make these Wisconsinites who they are, refusing to polish things up for efficiency's sake. Take the frequent phone conversations between Brendan Dassey and his mother, Barb Tadych. Each and every one begins with the same exchange: “Yeah?” “Yeah.” Why do Ricciardi and Demos include that over and over again? Why not cut right to the part that's significant?
Because that’s who Brendan and Barb are and by knowing when to edit and when not to edit, the filmmakers force us to confront the reality that these are real humans with complex emotions and interesting personalities. From reading about the case of Steven and Brendan in the newspaper, one might very easily dismiss them as two dumb rednecks who we have not a thing in common with. Then you listen to Brendan and Dassey's phone conversations and what you're hearing is a young boy who just wants to watch Wrestlemania. You're also hearing an angry, confused but loving mother trying her best to wrap her mind around everything. These conversations go on far longer than they usually do in a documentary and for good reason. Dassey and Tadych stutter, they misspeak, they can’t think of what the word "inconsistent" means, they talk about favorite animals, and they say “yeah” a lot. Brendan stops being a name printed in the paper and starts being a living, breathing individual, full of all the quirks that come with that.
This was not a given just from the nature of it being a documentary. Compare Making a Murderer to a similar true crime show from last year, HBO's The Jinx. That series is highly addicting partially due to its breakneck pace and though we get to know Robert Durst and all his weirdness as he burps his way through sentences, for the most part, the series is all about laying out the information. We don't really have a connection to anyone featured besides maybe director Andrew Jarecki himself, as his assemblage of the show becomes a story in and of itself. Then there are true crime series like Forensic Files that are even more economical than that, breezing through the entire story in 30 minutes with the help of an overdramatic narrator and a few selected interview clips. The presentation feels sterile as the creators relay skip over what's really interesting about a true crime tale: the men and women caught up in it, regular folks who had no idea they were about to take part in something worthy of retelling on TV years later.
Ricciardi and Demos don’t just take this approach of lax editing when it comes to Steven and Brendan. They also allow viewers to become attached to the entire Avery family and even to Avery’s attorneys, Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, by having us to spend more time with them than is really required for understanding the story. Take a great scene in episode 8 just before the verdict is to be read in court. We cut to Strang, who’s standing outside talking to the Avery family on his cell phone. “We’ll be outside – we’ll be outside waiting for you,” he stammers. He is fully composed like the professional he is, but you can see the anxiety and pain in his face. Moments later, we see Strang’s conversation with the Averys about the logistics of what’s about to take place: there’s a little room in the court that’s open for them and that’s where they should go after the verdict is announced. They talk about what will happen if Steven is declared innocent and shortly after they all proceed in.
This is the kind of scene that would be trimmed or removed entirely if one were short on time. Nothing dramatic happens, no important information is discussed and Ricciardi and Demos could have opened on the shot of the group walking in. If this were The Jinx, that's exactly what would have been in the final cut. But Making a Murderer wants us to experience these seemingly inconsequential beats in order to create the illusion that we are as much a part of this trial as the Averys are and it sure does work.
This philosophy on editing manifests itself in the final episode, which unfolds after both trials have concluded. It's typical for a true crime documentary to show the aftermath of the story, but not this much aftermath. In episode 10, a full hour is devoted to what life is like after such a horrible event has ended and the episode opens on one full minute of just empty shots of the Avery household. Later, in a sequence in which Barb Tadych and Dolores Avery talk over the dinner table, we focus on the long silences between words. Barb leans back in her chair defeated, describing in a somewhat mundane fashion visiting Brendan in jail and playing UNO. Once again, it's not a necessary scene and yet in another way it's completely necessary because this is not just a show about a botched court case. It's a show about how that case ruins the lives of real people and thousands of subdued moments like these added together is, after all, what a life is.
When Robert Durst's "not guilty" verdict is reached in The Jinx, we are shocked and surprised, but we aren’t quite devastated in the same way we are with Making a Murderer. Why is that? Really, it's because of the differences in editing between both shows and just as important as deciding what to cut out is deciding what to leave in and when to let a scene linger. Here, the filmmakers' inclusion of banal details make us feel at every moment like we're along for the ride. And when that ride crashes and burns in a way more horrifying than we ever could have anticipated, all those extended, quiet sequences finally pay off and make Ricciardi and Demos's point better than any cold, hard facts ever could.