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Colin Firth: "The Staircase"

 "The Staircase"--a documentary--is surely one of my favorite ten (fifteen?)-hour films. It's about Michael Peterson, who maybe killed his wife down South.


Michael called the cops to say he'd found his wife at the bottom of a staircase. But there were weird lacerations on the head of the corpse: If just a fall occurred, why would there be lacerations? Had Peterson murdered his wife? Had Peterson had a physical fight that grew in intensity, and led to manslaughter (semi-accidental death)?

Some said the lacerations came from a blow poke--but then the blow poke was discovered, and it didn't have any traces of blood. Some say the lacerations came from an owl attack. But how often do owls attack humans?

The story only grows weirder. Years before (maybe) killing his wife, Peterson (maybe) killed a family friend, and used the same staircase plot! Also, someone in the prosecution was pretty much transparently homophobic. (Parker Posey was born to utter the line: "Can someone please explain to me what rimming is?") The homophobia was important because Peterson revealed himself to be bisexual; he said his wife knew, and approved, but others had questions.

Yet another strange twist: A French crew arrived to film Peterson on the stand, and in his home, and Peterson "fell in love" with one of the creative team members, and this person did not then excuse herself from the rest of the project.

I am watching the new dramatized series--entitled, confusingly, "The Staircase"--and my main reason for watching is Colin Firth. I think Firth studied Jeremy Irons's Oscar-winning performance in "Reversal of Fortune." ("Fortune" is essentially the same ambiguous story as "The Staircase.") Studying Firth, you're certain that basically everything the character says in a lie. But: Is the "accident" story one of those many lies? Or is it one of just a few true narratives that Firth's character is spinning?

I'm sort of shocked that Firth has only two Oscar nominations under his belt. It's so much fun to watch him.

Finally, it's a treat to see such a bizarre idea for a series (a series about a series about a real-world did-he-or-didn't-he case where we may never have any big answers).

Kudos to HBO for taking some risks.
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