All I can discuss at work is "The Staircase." I'm leaving soon, and I'm not well-equipped to handle emotional conversations, so, when one looms, I just ask: "Have you seen THE STAIRCASE"? (I'm working on this.)
If you aren't a STAIRCASE True Believer, stop here. Otherwise, a few observations:
(1) I can't help but notice similarities between "Blood Will Tell" and "The Staircase." In "Blood Will Tell," the local authorities found a soft-core porn calendar in High-School Principal's possession. Authorities then concluded: (a) High-School Principal was secretly gay, (b) HSP wanted out of his marriage, and (c) HSP opted out by gunning his wife to death, then running off to a far-away conference, so he could "look innocent." (There are some major leaps in that sentence! HSP explained that the calendar was a gag gift for a family friend, but this plausible story seemed not to gain much traction with people in power.)
By contrast, I'm convinced Michael Peterson really did kill his wife (and no, I can't prove it, and no, it's not likely I would make a fine, dispassionate judge in any courtroom). That said, there seems to be implicit homophobia in the Peterson case, as there was in the HSP case. Cops like to make a major (il)logical jump: "He was closeted, and so he must have been a murderer!" (I was closeted for many years, and I can promise you that I didn't kill anyone in that time-frame. I have not one--not even one!--corpse to my name.) Again, I do think Peterson is guilty, but that doesn't stop me from believing there was some homophobia/bias at work in the way the cops/investigators conducted themselves.
(2) The other big STAIRCASE/HSP similarity. Both cases seem to rely on really shitty "blood-splatter analysis." The NYT more or less crucifies blood-splatter analysts everywhere, in "Blood Will Tell." The Times reporter suggests that many "analysts" have only a brief, casual training credit to their name, when real blood-splatter analysis takes a thorough knowledge of physics; you have to think in three dimensions, and juggle many variables at once. (I'm such a skeptic, I think I wouldn't put much stock in your splatter analysis even if you were intellectually on par with Stephen Hawking. But that's just one cranky writer speaking.)
In both "Blood Will Tell" and "Staircase," a man's fate hinges on someone's reading of a splatter. The reading has a Tarot-card quality. "Clearly, this blood on the flashlight came from someone doing a close-up shooting!" (It's later suggested, after the framed man has spent a few decades in prison, that the blood on the flashlight isn't actually blood, human or non-human. Not blood now. Not blood in the distant past. Not blood even on Day One of its existence.) In "The Staircase," I think, the analyst does some mystifying experiments with a watermelon dropped from the top of a ladder, and then--oops!--it just so happens that this analyst told several lies and omitted crucial information in his testimony. Again, again, again, I still think Peterson is guilty, but one sometimes wonders if the analysts are as psychopathic as the cold-hearted killers they have invented by means of their testimony.
(3) Peterson reminds me a bit of Patsy Ramsey. With both figures, you get the sense: This person just isn't telling the camera everything there is to tell. Goodies remain locked away in the cupboard. Like Patsy Ramsey, Peterson also seems to be a bad actor. "I whisper her name in my heart." Who talks like that? (Contrast Peterson with the HSP. The HSP tells concrete stories about his dead wife; she never seems far from his mind. On the other hand, Peterson is unable to conjure an image of his wife--for us, in the audience. He mentions her, but it seems as if he is trying to persuade us of an interest he doesn't actually have. It's almost as if he were a gay man and a murderer, posing as a just-folks heterosexual and an upstanding citizen. Who's to say?)
If Peterson is indeed guilty, then it makes us wonder why he would consent to be filmed for hour after hour after hour. Is this a specific kind of thrill-seeking pathology? Is this like people who masturbate in a noose, because the threat of kicking the bucket is deeply, deeply exciting? Is Peterson like Robert Durst, consenting to have the cameras around because the added "tight-rope walk" provides new titillation? (Alas, Peterson doesn't confess in the sensational way Durst confesses. Peterson doesn't confess at all. More's the pity.)
*I write all this, and of course, I'm thinking, I may be wrong. I may be running my mouth with breezy authority, when Peterson is, in fact, innocent. Such is the pleasure of true-crime storytelling. Are you watching? What do you think???
If you aren't a STAIRCASE True Believer, stop here. Otherwise, a few observations:
(1) I can't help but notice similarities between "Blood Will Tell" and "The Staircase." In "Blood Will Tell," the local authorities found a soft-core porn calendar in High-School Principal's possession. Authorities then concluded: (a) High-School Principal was secretly gay, (b) HSP wanted out of his marriage, and (c) HSP opted out by gunning his wife to death, then running off to a far-away conference, so he could "look innocent." (There are some major leaps in that sentence! HSP explained that the calendar was a gag gift for a family friend, but this plausible story seemed not to gain much traction with people in power.)
By contrast, I'm convinced Michael Peterson really did kill his wife (and no, I can't prove it, and no, it's not likely I would make a fine, dispassionate judge in any courtroom). That said, there seems to be implicit homophobia in the Peterson case, as there was in the HSP case. Cops like to make a major (il)logical jump: "He was closeted, and so he must have been a murderer!" (I was closeted for many years, and I can promise you that I didn't kill anyone in that time-frame. I have not one--not even one!--corpse to my name.) Again, I do think Peterson is guilty, but that doesn't stop me from believing there was some homophobia/bias at work in the way the cops/investigators conducted themselves.
(2) The other big STAIRCASE/HSP similarity. Both cases seem to rely on really shitty "blood-splatter analysis." The NYT more or less crucifies blood-splatter analysts everywhere, in "Blood Will Tell." The Times reporter suggests that many "analysts" have only a brief, casual training credit to their name, when real blood-splatter analysis takes a thorough knowledge of physics; you have to think in three dimensions, and juggle many variables at once. (I'm such a skeptic, I think I wouldn't put much stock in your splatter analysis even if you were intellectually on par with Stephen Hawking. But that's just one cranky writer speaking.)
In both "Blood Will Tell" and "Staircase," a man's fate hinges on someone's reading of a splatter. The reading has a Tarot-card quality. "Clearly, this blood on the flashlight came from someone doing a close-up shooting!" (It's later suggested, after the framed man has spent a few decades in prison, that the blood on the flashlight isn't actually blood, human or non-human. Not blood now. Not blood in the distant past. Not blood even on Day One of its existence.) In "The Staircase," I think, the analyst does some mystifying experiments with a watermelon dropped from the top of a ladder, and then--oops!--it just so happens that this analyst told several lies and omitted crucial information in his testimony. Again, again, again, I still think Peterson is guilty, but one sometimes wonders if the analysts are as psychopathic as the cold-hearted killers they have invented by means of their testimony.
(3) Peterson reminds me a bit of Patsy Ramsey. With both figures, you get the sense: This person just isn't telling the camera everything there is to tell. Goodies remain locked away in the cupboard. Like Patsy Ramsey, Peterson also seems to be a bad actor. "I whisper her name in my heart." Who talks like that? (Contrast Peterson with the HSP. The HSP tells concrete stories about his dead wife; she never seems far from his mind. On the other hand, Peterson is unable to conjure an image of his wife--for us, in the audience. He mentions her, but it seems as if he is trying to persuade us of an interest he doesn't actually have. It's almost as if he were a gay man and a murderer, posing as a just-folks heterosexual and an upstanding citizen. Who's to say?)
If Peterson is indeed guilty, then it makes us wonder why he would consent to be filmed for hour after hour after hour. Is this a specific kind of thrill-seeking pathology? Is this like people who masturbate in a noose, because the threat of kicking the bucket is deeply, deeply exciting? Is Peterson like Robert Durst, consenting to have the cameras around because the added "tight-rope walk" provides new titillation? (Alas, Peterson doesn't confess in the sensational way Durst confesses. Peterson doesn't confess at all. More's the pity.)
*I write all this, and of course, I'm thinking, I may be wrong. I may be running my mouth with breezy authority, when Peterson is, in fact, innocent. Such is the pleasure of true-crime storytelling. Are you watching? What do you think???
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