THE STAIRCASE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ****
If you liked CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS or if you've ever been fascinated by real-life crime stories, be prepared to stay glued to the tube every Monday this April, as the Sundance Channel will be premiering one of the most engrossing films that I've ever seen. For four weeks, you'll be wondering what will happen next in the story of a famous criminal case from North Carolina.
Written and directed brilliantly by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (MURDER ON A SUNDAY MORNING), this documentary delves in fascinating detail into the death of Kathleen Peterson, a Nortel executive, who may have been killed in a fall down some dark and narrow stairs in her home or may have been bludgeoned to death by her husband, Michael Peterson, a novelist and a local columnist who used to like nothing better than ridiculing the local Durham authorities who are prosecuting him for his wife's murder.
Just as in the magnificent CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS, your beliefs will change back and forth as to Michael's guilt and as to whether the prosecution is meeting its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But THE STAIRCASE isn't quite perfect. Its one significant flaw is that the first episode is its weakest and slowest as it tries to set the scene, so I fear some viewers may give up prematurely. Those that do will be missing one of the best movies of the year.
With incredible, amazing access, the documentary team takes the audience into almost every defense team session and into the courtroom, using a large number of cameras. The images are as sharp as a major motion picture and the dreamy, melancholy music is so mesmerizing you'll be wanting to know if you can buy the CD of the soundtrack.
The defense team assembled, at the cost of almost a million dollars, consists of lawyers, led by a charismatic David Rudolf, a witness coach, a survey taker, an expert in biomechanics, an expert in blood splatters, a jury consultant, etc. The camera is in on every meeting, making us feel like part of the team. They are amazingly candid about the viability of their various possible strategies and approaches in defending their client. When a potentially shocking fact is discovered about Michael's personal life, a $35,000 poll is commissioned in order to ascertain how best to deal with it in order not to inflame the jury. Several focus groups are also gathered in order to try out different defense strategies. They consider and reject the idea of a full blown mock trial, opting instead for more surveys of the general public.
Michael Peterson's family is worth their own film. At first they are described as a large and an idyllic blended family, and all of them look straight out of central casting. Their five children are in their early to mid-twenties with many of them still living at home. Two of the youngest girls, Margaret and Martha, were both adopted by Michael and his ex-wife, when their parents died. These girls are perhaps their dad's biggest supporters, even when some strange twist midway through the film, which covers the period of a couple of a years, would seem certain to cause a break in their resilient bonds with their dad. Part of the film is indeed a great soap opera centered on the Peterson family.
The "facts" of the case are in a constant state of flux, especially a missing blowpoke, which the prosecution claims to be the murder weapon. Another is what the blood splatter patterns tell us. At first it seems clear, but eventually it becomes almost a Rorschach test, meaning different things to different people and having no definitive interpretation. And, if you like watching CSI on television, you'll be absorbed by every second in the trial, which ran for months and takes up most of the last five episodes.
After each episode, you'll be even more addicted to this gripping drama, and you'll be constantly asking yourself:
1. Was he guilty?
2. Has the prosecution prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt?
3. Will the jury come in with a guilty verdict or a not guilty verdict? Or will it be a hung jury?
You'll be asking yourself this, but I predict your guesses will be all over the map, changing every week. What won't change is your obsession with seeing the next episode. If all television was this good, we could get rid of theaters.
THE STAIRCASE runs 6:00, being made up of eight 45 minute episodes shown two per week. It is not rated by the MPAA but would be an R for some language and graphic photographs and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The DVD will be released in August 2005.
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