Thank you for another great post! It really helped me to think through my very different reactions to two documentary series about Peter Sutcliffe (Britain's equivalent of Ted Bundy in terms of how often people go back to that filmmaking well?), a BBC one that I found sobering but excellent and a Netflix effort I found pretty gross (and I think gave up on midway through).
On the surface, they were pretty similar (even having many of the same interviewees), but the BBC one felt like it had something to say about society at the time, the many appalling failures of the police investigation and how the former contributed to the latter. And I think only the Netflix one fell into the trap you identify of ignoring the wider context of the victims.
Hi! Thanks for your thoughts! It's always interesting to actually see two non-fiction films on the same subject and compare notes, isn't it? Sometimes it really does show the gaps in the filmmakers' intent and attitudes. I found the same thing with the new Dennis Nielsen doc on Netflix, not long after the fictionalised BBC one, Des, with Matthew Tennant. The latter is actually quite good, I think, though still falls into the trap of making the killer darkly fascinating -- inevitable sometimes, I suppose. x
Thank you for another great post! It really helped me to think through my very different reactions to two documentary series about Peter Sutcliffe (Britain's equivalent of Ted Bundy in terms of how often people go back to that filmmaking well?), a BBC one that I found sobering but excellent and a Netflix effort I found pretty gross (and I think gave up on midway through).
On the surface, they were pretty similar (even having many of the same interviewees), but the BBC one felt like it had something to say about society at the time, the many appalling failures of the police investigation and how the former contributed to the latter. And I think only the Netflix one fell into the trap you identify of ignoring the wider context of the victims.
Hi! Thanks for your thoughts! It's always interesting to actually see two non-fiction films on the same subject and compare notes, isn't it? Sometimes it really does show the gaps in the filmmakers' intent and attitudes. I found the same thing with the new Dennis Nielsen doc on Netflix, not long after the fictionalised BBC one, Des, with Matthew Tennant. The latter is actually quite good, I think, though still falls into the trap of making the killer darkly fascinating -- inevitable sometimes, I suppose. x