Why make a documentary like this that's in five parts and totals out to 7 1/2 hours? I suspect that in a way seeing the film now at the end of 2016 this takes on another tone altogether and is still painfully relevant in a lot of ways. But to say it first, here is an absolutely unexpected and surprisingly deep question to ponder, which I think 'Made in America' does especially: is there any empathy, let alone sympathy, for Simpson? Empathy may be the tougher one to call, at least for me (frankly as a white guy who hasn't done s*** in his life relatively to the man once called 'Juice' with total love). What this does accomplish, however, is to put Simpson into such a grand context of this *entire nation*, what it means to be black in America but also, more maybe more especially, to be something of a GOD to people. In other words, what transcends getting your ass beaten by the cops ala Rodney King?
This is a very long series but nearly ever moment is worth it for the question about how to reconcile the fact that so many, many African Americans were so happy when Simpson was acquitted of murder. This isn't even the central question though, at least as far as I can tell. If there is one it's this: what do people truly *see* in another person, as far as an issue or a moment in the media goes? Simpson had many moments as a star athlete in college at USC and then as a player for the Buffalo Bills. But I think if his career had ended there, if he had only been *OK* as a football player, America overall, the media and the public around the circus created, wouldn't have paid as much attention. OJ, through his own dogged perseverance and (certainly for the time) likability, got into commercials and acting jobs. He loved playing golf and being of the upper class community of Brentwood with its mansions and pools and god knows what else. An image was created and, in a sense, this image carried him into white America (and while black America surely loved him still, I'm saying pre-murders, it was the white America that counted actually, and which he sought out more, i.e. his coveted picture with J Edgar Hoover).
Meanwhile, director Ezra Edelman is building in the first two segments of this doc, for nearly three hours, the story of racial tensions in Los Angeles especially - the Watts riots and Rodney King and the 92 riots, of course, but also little heard stories like a woman who's house was practically destroyed by rabid (white) cops, and then a teenage girl shot by a Korean shopkeeper who got a slap on the wrist - contrasted with OJ's rise and then his shocking marriage to Nicole Brown. I think it's important that, not unlike the Murphy FX series, Edelman surely shows and acknowledges what people still think - hey, here's a BLACK man with a WHITE woman - but it's deeper than that, and about what it means to be an abusive man to a woman, any woman (Simpson's first wife/kids is mostly put to the wayside, I may have wanted to know more but maybe there's still only so much to get to in all this time), and this issue of male dominance and Simpson basically creating a Lifetime movie of his own making is contrasted with what was really going on with black America and the dreaded LAPD.
The meat of the series is of course parts 3 and 4 which focus on the trial (one thing I appreciated by the way that this did that Murphy's show oddly left out was showing Simpson as being really a part of his defense, cunning actually, in what he showed and didn't on camera and what he conspired with his attorneys to do). But these first two parts are crucial and significant to setting up what comes after: how the public saw OJ; how the people actually killed, Ron and Nicole, were almost put by the wayside once the race card kicked in; how the prosecution, led by a tough-as-nails Marcia Clark went in thinking she had a fairly simple case, only for this to be knocked down by a) a jury that might not be the smartest (regardless of race) or able to discern BS when presented, and b) a defense team unassuaged at presenting BS (or seizing on slip-ups like the glove) at any given point. What is meant to be something that anyone with critical thinking skills could grasp is taken and distorted before your very eyes and then... the WTF (for half of the country) decision is reached. Oh, and the rich guy fools everyone and gets away with it. ... sound familiar?
The point is, I think that why Made in America is so striking is because, frankly and sadly, America hasn't gotten over the race issues that plagued us before (how many blacks have been killed by cops over the past several years with the cops walking away, visa-vi King), nor its obsession with fame (the Kardashians and the start of their reality show is a nice ironic/coincidence moment). And the filmmaker tells all of this with such a deft grasp of what interviews to use and gets so deep into parts unexpected (i.e. Mark Furman). It's a staggering document of the American experience, of what happens when perhaps the commandment we're told about is broken not with murder or adultery, but of worshiping false idols. Simpson was genuine for a short time, certainly about himself ("I'm not black, I'm OJ!" was his common refrain), but ultimately he worshipped himself, and paid the price.
This is a very long series but nearly ever moment is worth it for the question about how to reconcile the fact that so many, many African Americans were so happy when Simpson was acquitted of murder. This isn't even the central question though, at least as far as I can tell. If there is one it's this: what do people truly *see* in another person, as far as an issue or a moment in the media goes? Simpson had many moments as a star athlete in college at USC and then as a player for the Buffalo Bills. But I think if his career had ended there, if he had only been *OK* as a football player, America overall, the media and the public around the circus created, wouldn't have paid as much attention. OJ, through his own dogged perseverance and (certainly for the time) likability, got into commercials and acting jobs. He loved playing golf and being of the upper class community of Brentwood with its mansions and pools and god knows what else. An image was created and, in a sense, this image carried him into white America (and while black America surely loved him still, I'm saying pre-murders, it was the white America that counted actually, and which he sought out more, i.e. his coveted picture with J Edgar Hoover).
Meanwhile, director Ezra Edelman is building in the first two segments of this doc, for nearly three hours, the story of racial tensions in Los Angeles especially - the Watts riots and Rodney King and the 92 riots, of course, but also little heard stories like a woman who's house was practically destroyed by rabid (white) cops, and then a teenage girl shot by a Korean shopkeeper who got a slap on the wrist - contrasted with OJ's rise and then his shocking marriage to Nicole Brown. I think it's important that, not unlike the Murphy FX series, Edelman surely shows and acknowledges what people still think - hey, here's a BLACK man with a WHITE woman - but it's deeper than that, and about what it means to be an abusive man to a woman, any woman (Simpson's first wife/kids is mostly put to the wayside, I may have wanted to know more but maybe there's still only so much to get to in all this time), and this issue of male dominance and Simpson basically creating a Lifetime movie of his own making is contrasted with what was really going on with black America and the dreaded LAPD.
The meat of the series is of course parts 3 and 4 which focus on the trial (one thing I appreciated by the way that this did that Murphy's show oddly left out was showing Simpson as being really a part of his defense, cunning actually, in what he showed and didn't on camera and what he conspired with his attorneys to do). But these first two parts are crucial and significant to setting up what comes after: how the public saw OJ; how the people actually killed, Ron and Nicole, were almost put by the wayside once the race card kicked in; how the prosecution, led by a tough-as-nails Marcia Clark went in thinking she had a fairly simple case, only for this to be knocked down by a) a jury that might not be the smartest (regardless of race) or able to discern BS when presented, and b) a defense team unassuaged at presenting BS (or seizing on slip-ups like the glove) at any given point. What is meant to be something that anyone with critical thinking skills could grasp is taken and distorted before your very eyes and then... the WTF (for half of the country) decision is reached. Oh, and the rich guy fools everyone and gets away with it. ... sound familiar?
The point is, I think that why Made in America is so striking is because, frankly and sadly, America hasn't gotten over the race issues that plagued us before (how many blacks have been killed by cops over the past several years with the cops walking away, visa-vi King), nor its obsession with fame (the Kardashians and the start of their reality show is a nice ironic/coincidence moment). And the filmmaker tells all of this with such a deft grasp of what interviews to use and gets so deep into parts unexpected (i.e. Mark Furman). It's a staggering document of the American experience, of what happens when perhaps the commandment we're told about is broken not with murder or adultery, but of worshiping false idols. Simpson was genuine for a short time, certainly about himself ("I'm not black, I'm OJ!" was his common refrain), but ultimately he worshipped himself, and paid the price.