FILM 1884: THE HUNTING GROUND

FILM 1884: THE HUNTING GROUND

An exposé of rape crimes on U.S. college campuses, their institutional cover-ups, and the devastating toll they take on students and their families.

BOOK 187: I'LL BE GONE IN THE DARK

BOOK 187: I'LL BE GONE IN THE DARK: ONE WOMAN'S OBSESSIVE SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER: MICHELLE MCNAMARA

A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer—the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade—from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.

"You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark."

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer. 

(information from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068432-i-ll-be-gone-in-the-dark)

MY VERDICT:

This is a tragic book, tragic in so many ways. Firstly it is tragic because of the awful accounts of rape and murder perpetrated by a true monster, but also tragic because of Michelle McNamara’s tragic death partway through it’s writing, and almost most tragic of all is that McNamara never got to see the Golden State Killer finally caught.

The book is superbly written, and amazingly researched, you feel like you’re travelling through time and witnessing the investigation. This book cements McNamara as a true crime legend. 

I did hear, before reading this book, some accounts of sleepless nights due to the content. As someone who has read a lot of true crime and watched a lot of horror, I skeptical, I thought maybe I was immune to this way of thinking. However, there were a few nights after spending hours reading the book that I heard a noise in the dark in the night time and wondered how easily someone could gain access to my home, did someone know that there were no men in the house and that I was an easy target? I quickly started mentally making weapons out of the everyday objects in my room and planning where to hide if that noise became louder or I heard footsteps. I think it’s a testament to McNamara’s writing that even the most hardcore true crime fanatics are irked when they feel like they are for a moment placed in a real victim’s shoes.

Michelle McNamara’s investigation techniques are like none I’ve ever been privy to before.  The amount of work that McNamara put in was phenomenal. I was in a privileged position of knowing who the Golden State Killer was eventually found out to be while reading this and, it turns out, she was along the right lines. Because so many avenues were explored, the rules of averages would predict that something would turn out to be right. They guessed he could have been a cop, and they proposed that he would be found using DNA ancestry, that’s the place where McNamara abruptly ended, the last thing she was looking at, and from reading the book, you knew it was only a matter of time before he was caught. 

I wonder if he read this book? Nothing he could have done could have avoided his capture at this point because they had his DNA. I hope somehow, somewhere, Michelle McNamara got to hear the cell door slam behind him.

FILM 1664: AUDRIE & DAISY 

TRIVIA: The twenty-fourth Netflix original documentary.

FILM 1418: THE ACCUSED

TRIVIA: Upon seeing a pre-screening of the film, Jodie Foster thought her performance as Sarah Tobias was so awful that she immediately began preparing for and taking the GRE's for graduate school. She was prepared to leave her film career behind and focus on academia...until she won the Academy Award for her performance.

Kelly McGillis was offered the role of Sarah Tobias, but having survived a violent sexual assault in 1982 by two men who broke into her apartment, she declined the role and instead fought for the part of Kathryn Murphy.

According Jodie Foster in her interview in Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters (2006), producer Stanley R. Jaffe felt she was "not sexy enough" for the role and wanted to cast another actress. He felt that 24-year-old Jodie Foster did not have the right talent for the role.

Brad Pitt auditioned for a role.

This is the first film since Two Women (1960) to win the Best Actress Academy Award without being nominated in any other category.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus was considered for the role of Sarah Tobias, but was later discarded because she was "too nice" for the part.

Brian De Palma was originally assigned to direct the movie.

In their separate careers several years after the release of The Accused (1988), both leading ladies, Kelly McGillis and Jodie Foster, publicly and proudly acknowledged their homosexuality. McGillis came out in 2009, and Foster in 2013.

FILM 1401: A TIME TO KILL

TRIVIA: Kevin Costner was considered for the role of Jake Brigance, but wanted complete control of the project. Author John Grisham objected and Costner passed on the project.

Paul Newman turned down the role of Lucien Wilbanks because he found the film's message distasteful.

This was the second movie in which Keifer and his father Donald both had roles.

FILM 1181: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

TRIVIA: As the film progresses, the set of the Kowalski apartment actually gets smaller to heighten the suggestion of Blanche's increasing claustrophobia.

Vivien Leigh, who suffered from bipolar disorder in real life, later had difficulties in distinguishing her real life from that of Blanche DuBois.

Vivien Leigh had already played Blanche in the first London production of the play, under the direction of her then-husband, Laurence Olivier. She later said that Olivier's direction of that production influenced her performance in the film more than did Elia Kazan's direction of the film.

Vivien Leigh, who was only 36 at the time of filming, had to be made up to look older.

Despite giving the definitive portrayal of Stanley Kowalski, Marlon Brando said he privately detested the character. However, it should be added that Brando was an eccentric character who loved misleading people and playing pranks.

As of 2014, it is one of only two films in history to win three Academy awards for acting. The other is Network (1976).