It’s undeniably one of the hottest trends in modern-day TV series and movies: true crime. Pop culture is inundated with the genre at the moment, that obsession fuelled by shows like Making a Murderer and The People v. O.J. Simpson, and podcasts like Serial.
The latest contender to enter the fray is the Netflix documentary Amanda Knox, which follows the story of Knox, the American woman accused of murdering British roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007. The two were living together in Italy as students when the horrible crime occurred, and Knox was eventually convicted and spent four years in prison (she had originally been sentenced to 26 years). Over time, the forensic evidence was questioned, along with police actions during the investigation, and she was exonerated (twice, which you’ll learn about in the doc).
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But, as with most sensational cases, doubt and questions still remain. There is an entire group of people who still believe Knox actually committed the crime, despite her exoneration. Global News spoke to Amanda Knox filmmakers Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn about the film, which they insist is more of an emotional take on the story than just a straight-up true-crime documentary.
Here are 8 things you need to know about Amanda Knox.
You’re going to get up-close and personal with Amanda Knox herself
Initially, upon her first exoneration, filmmakers were chomping at the bit to get time with Knox. She refused all of them, hoping instead to write a book about her experience. (She eventually did in 2013, in a memoir called Waiting to Be Heard.) It wasn’t until the beginning of 2014, when she re-approached Blackhurst and McGinn, that she expressed interest in the documentary. The two filmmakers had approached her in 2011, but she wasn’t ready at the time.
Amanda Knox features several snippets with Knox herself, the camera centred on her face as she recounts her experience of being accused of murder, undergoing intense police interrogation, having to deal with ridiculously intense media scrutiny, the reactions of her friends and family and all the rest. She is a far cry from what the mass media has led the public to believe, but even still, in the back of your mind, there is still that burning question: did she murder Meredith Kercher?
“Amanda shocked us with her ability to contextualize,” said McGinn. “Obviously, she and all the people involved, spent so much time thinking about this case. Thinking about every detail. Not all of that thinking has to do with the twists and turns, shall we say, but a lot of it has to do with the larger picture, how she found herself here, and what it means to be caught up in the middle of it.”
The project took five years to complete
Blackhurst and McGinn clearly look at this film as a labour of love, an examination of a tragedy that somehow morphed into this worldwide phenomenon. They wanted to be certain that they spoke to every relevant person in the case, from the police chief to members of the media, to show all sides of the story and to make clear the kind of film they wanted to make. This is not a slapdash work generated to maximize the streaming audience.
Additionally, both filmmakers didn’t watch Netflix’s “other” true-crime juggernaut, Making a Murderer, because they didn’t want to be influenced in any way while making Amanda Knox. The film is unquestionably less court-heavy than MaM, and it moves much faster through the events that transpired.
“When we started this in the summer of 2011, we were interested in taking a look at how something that was a tragedy at its core had become worldwide news and in some ways, worldwide entertainment,” said Blackhurst. “We were fascinated about how it had transformed into this story that captivated people everywhere.”
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You’ll get to know Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s boyfriend at the time
Everyone involved in this story has had their lives affected in some way — obviously Knox and Kercher, Kercher’s family, Knox’s family, Knox’s boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, British journalist Nick Pisa, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, and the eventually convicted suspect Rudy Guede — and nearly all of the people interviewed for the film say that the fateful day of Kercher’s murder has completely changed their life trajectory.
Sollecito went through all of the same things Knox did: the interrogations, the suspicion, the incredible upheaval to his life, the time in prison. Yet he doesn’t even get close to the magnitude of attention Knox does. Have you ever heard Sollecito speak about the case? About Knox? About who committed the murder? Amanda Knox is exceptional and fascinating in that way, because we get to hear from people we’ve never heard a peep from before.
“We always wanted this to be a first-person narrative,” said McGinn. “We felt like, for all of the Amanda Knox coverage, we’d actually heard less from the people at the centre of the story than we had from the people outside of the story. It felt like an opportunity to a) tell the story from a fresh point of view, and b) tell it on more of a personal level.”
Post-viewing, you may not like media very much
The way Knox’s story was told through the media, the audience digested the tale through sound bytes, catchy phrases and sensational claims, like Knox was involved in a sex cult, or she and Sollecito strong-armed Kercher into sexual deviance, or any other form of stretched sensationalism. These were two young, beautiful white women in a small Italian town, involved in an allegedly salacious tryst that went wrong, resulting in murder. This is the stuff that tabloid dreams are made of.
With nicknames like “Foxy Knoxy” (a childhood nickname of Knox’s own creation) and descriptors like “sex-and-drug-crazed she-devil,” “femme fatale,””black-widow beauty” and “Amanda the Ripper,” the case was almost impossible to view through the lens of objectivity. Newspapers, tabloids and other publications seized on the raunchy details and pushed forward. It’s actually appalling in some instances how much the media coverage of the case impacted the case itself, not to mention the trial proceedings.
The media even published Knox’s private prison diary in its entirety.
The mistreatment of women by media, police and society in general is apparent
At its core, this is a story of two women whose lives intersected in a horrific, unimaginable way. It’s no surprise the main thrust of media coverage zoomed in on the sexual aspect of this, and that the women were young, white, and in college. In the film, Knox tells stories of being slapped in the head by a police officer or not being believed when she told her version of events. She describes being mentally manipulated by the authorities, essentially painted into the corner until her story matched theirs.
Even when the filmmakers interview prosecutor Mignini, it is clear that he still thinks she is guilty. He says unequivocally that she is a liar, and something in her eyes and behaviour indicates her guilt. That’s not to deny that he might be correct, but there’s also no arguing that if the murder suspect were a man, the treatment by police would have been very different. It’s interesting to compare Knox’s experience being interrogated with the way Sollecito was. See for yourself.
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Forensic scientists will pull their hair out watching this
If true-crime aficionados know anything, it’s the importance of forensic evidence. Unquestionably, this was/is the hugest case the Italian town of Perugia had ever seen, and the crime scene was messy. The forensic police and scientists bungled many elements of the case: the protective footwear wasn’t cleaned, evidence was moved and missed, dozens of people came in and out of the crime scene undocumented and DNA evidence was incorrectly reported. Frustratingly, the mishandling of evidence makes the case truly impossible to solve with certainty.
We are at peak true crime right now
Whatever’s going on in society, pop-culture consumers seem to be a part of some sort of hive mind. From the popularity of MaM to the addictiveness of Serial, true crime is having a moment. By their very nature, true-crime stories are dichotomous: while they provide us a definitive “yes” or “no” with documented evidence — a clear answer — there is always the tantalizing back-and-forth, the “did she?” or “didn’t she?” Today’s society is, at best, tumultuous, so perhaps we’re all searching for that sure thing, the clear answer in all the madness.
“We’re fascinated by the way we construct narratives and the way we communicate with each other,” said Blackhurst. “Ideally, we set out to make a meta-commentary about why we’re so invested in these stories, and why true crime has come to be so popular. Why are we so fascinated by the possibility that a monster could live next door, or any of these other archetypes we see in our movies and entertainment?”
“You know, it’s funny. The irony of this ‘true-crime boom’ … all of us started making these projects irrespective of the others … none of us had any idea that this genre would become so popular,” he continued. “The Making a Murderer creators spent nearly 10 years on that project, and we spent five; Serial came out after multiple years of research. People are really taken by these true-crime stories, but every single movie or TV show that comes out stands on its own with different approaches, addressing different cultural issues.”
The documentary questions our concept of celebrity and public domain
“Our culture is so dedicated to the idea of celebrity,” said McGinn. “We’re all fascinated by what movie stars are up to in their lives, and at its heart, this movie is about private people getting caught up in a very public story. What that can do to people is fascinating. Plus the true-crime element, and showing the consequences for the people involved, really illustrates how we get absorbed into these tales.”
Amanda Knox, rather than being a true-crime whodunit, is more of a character portrait. These are real people who became accidental celebrities. Who, exactly, is Amanda Knox? Who are these characters on the fringe that never really got column inches or airtime? You get to hear their stories firsthand, and they were actually there, right in the middle of this perfect storm. Even though Knox and Sollecito were exonerated, we’ll never know exactly what happened on that day in 2007 — but the filmmakers present the pieces for you to decide for yourself what you think happened.
‘Amanda Knox’ will be streaming on Netflix Canada as of midnight on Sept. 30.