Last night I watched all three "Paradise Lost" documentaries, and I thought they were really thought provoking. For those who are unfamiliar with the "Paradise Lost" and West Memphis 3 trials, the first film "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" follows the trials of three teenagers on trial over the murder of three 8 year old boys. The prosecution's hardest evidence against the three teenagers was a confession from one of the boys. He said the murders were done due to a Satanic ritual. Once the trials for all three teenagers are over, you are left to wonder, are these three boys really responsible for the murders?
For me, I think they were not guilty of the murders. First of all, the first boy, Jesse Miskelly, who had been the one to make the confession was coerced by the West Memphis police to make the confession. I believe it because they had held Miskelly in for questioning for 12 hours yet they only recorded the last 45 minutes of the questioning. And even with the 45 minutes of recording you can tell the police was leading Jesse into telling the details of the murders. Also, when the trials for the other two boys came, there seemed to be no real hard evidence against Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin. The biggest thing the prosecution was going for was Miskelly's confession. However, Miskelly said he was not going to testify against Echols or Baldwin because he did not want to lie and put two other innocent people in prison. Most of the trial was based around the idea that Echols was a Wiccan so it meant he worshipped Satan. As for Baldwin? All they really had on him was that he was best friends with Echols so that meant that he was guilty and also a Wiccan. The witnesses the prosecution had were all really super shoddy witnesses. People who it seemed like let their wild imaginations get to the best of them. When the defense team asked the witnesses simple questions, they couldn't give any answers. One of the witnesses who claimed to have heard Echols admit to murdering the three boys was asked, "What did Mr Echols say before you heard him confess to the murders?" and "How did Mr Echols sound when he was admitting to the crimes? Was he angry? Happy? Loud?" And every single time the girls responded with, "I don't know".
It sounds extremely absurd, but I do remember in the early 1990's (the trials happened in 1994) there was this huge fear of Satan worshipping. It mostly came from the popularity of metal bands in the 1980's and into the 1990's, especially bands like Metallica and Slayer, and I honestly don't know what else. I guess the fact that a lot of kids began wearing a lot of black and going for a more "goth" look caused adults to become afraid and the easiest thing to blame was Satan, especially in a place like general America (especially the South, where the West Memphis trials were held) where there are strong believers in Christianity. I'm not saying all Christians are stupid to believe it, but when you're in a place where Christian beliefs are strong, it is difficult to be different and welcomed.
In the second film, "Paradise Lost 2: Revelations", it goes into Damien Echols attempt, five years laters in 1999, to try to make an appeal and be granted a new trial. It also follows a group of people who support the West Memphis 3, believing these three young men have been wrongly convicted of crimes they did not commit as well as follows the stepfather of one of the murdered boys. The stepfather, John Byers, is portrayed as a potential suspect to the murders of the three boys, not by the police, but by the supporters of the West Memphis 3. Mostly, it was due to the fact that during the filming of the first documentary, Byers had given the filmmakers of the documentary a knife, and they noticed blood on the knife. They handed the knife over to the police department. In CurrentTV's "50 Documentaries You Need To See Before You Die" the two filmmakers said that they did not give the knife to the police to show whether or not they believed that Byers was the real killer, but they wanted to show that they were able to find more plausible reasons and causes than the police were with the West Memphis 3. We also follow the original lawyer of Jesse Miskelly as he and a crime expert go over the details of the murders again. Little is resolved and it just frustrated me that the state of Arkansas is so afraid to admit that they fucked up that they are willing to let three other boys lose their lives by continually letting them falsely sit in prison.
The last film "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" follows up in 2011, when Damien Echols' new lawyers come in to ask for a new trial based on the findings of new evidence that may prove that he and Jason Baldwin and Jesse Miskelly were not guilty of the murders of the three boys in 1993. It's really quite compelling to see the new evidence they find and how John Byers has turned around from the previous films. In the first two films he had his mind made up that the West Memphis 3 were guilty, but once the new evidence came up he became one of the biggest supporters of freeing the West Memphis 3. He and Damien Echols admit that they were both wrong to blindly accuse each other of being the murderers of the three boys. With the new evidence found, people begin to turn their eyes on one of the victims' other stepfather, since the forensics experts said that they had found hair on one of the shoelaces that had been used to tie up the three victims that could possibly belong to him. It didn't help that this guy tried to sue Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines (who strongly supports the West Memphis 3 along with a good number of other big named celebrities, the most notable being Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Johnny Depp) for defamation. The lawyers of Natalie Maines questioned the stepfather on his checkered past with violence and how there have been some witnesses coming forward with allegations that they had seen him with the three boys at 6:30PM when in the past witnesses claimed to have seen the three boys at 6:00.
The film actually wrapped up in August of 2011, but then suddenly a couple weeks later there was a surprise court showing where a new judge was put on the case and he offered the three men an "Alford" plea. In this plea the three men can claim innocence and be set free for their time served (almost 18 years), but the state of Arkansas will see them as "guilty". It's a fucked up deal but the three men took it. Why? Because if they had gone with the new trial, that most likely would have been granted to them, with the new evidence it could have taken years for them to go through with it. Baldwin openly expresses his desires to not take the Alford plea, but knew that Echols was on death row and didn't want to risk seeing his friend possibly be given lethal injection. Echols also pointed out that the West Memphis 3 can now continue to fight for the clearing of their names but on the outside instead of from the inside.
I left all three films utterly grief stricken. No matter what my personal opinion on the West Memphis 3, three 8 year old boys who were brutally murdered in 1993 still have no closure to their case. But with my opinion that the West Memphis 3 are not guilty of the murders, it's even more depressing to have watched all three men lose so much of their lives in prison on crimes they did not commit. I was fighting so hard not to cry at the end of the film. It was so unfair to see three young boys robbed of their lives due senseless acts done upon them, and to only have it follow up with three other boys at the time be robbed of their lives for 18 years based upon a witch hunt. At the end of it all, no one won. Yes, the West Memphis 3 are finally free, but they never should have gone to prison in the first place.
I found out on Entertainment Weekly's website that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh produced another documentary, filmed by Amy Berg, titled "West of Memphis" also based on the West Memphis 3 and the murders of the 3 boys in West Memphis. I hope to see this film out soon in the future. Let's hope we learn about terrible mistakes we make when we falsely imprison people.
Also, it's rather trivial, but the use of Metallica's music across all three films was well done. It especially hits hard when you know the story of Metallica's reasons to allow the usage of their music for the films (and this is saying a lot considering I kind of don't like Metallica, mostly Lars, but I can say I do like a good number of their music but my opinions on Metallica has no purpose to this).
Also, not too long ago I watched "The Thin Blue Line". It's also a documentary about a man falsely convicted of a murder he did not commit. Where the "Paradise Lost" films go for straight up docu-style of showing actual footage from the police investigation, news reports, and interviews with those involved in the trials, "The Thin Blue Line" goes for set ups of the crime and the events that followed as well as interviews with those involved. It definitely has an entrancing style to how this documentary was shot. Definitely a well made film. After "The Thin Blue Line" came out, the falsely convicted man was freed.
And sorry for the long post, but these films really got me into them.
Is the girl with the dragon tattoo any good?
I saw about the first 30-45 minutes of the US version and I wish I got to see it all! I loved the use of music in the film and David Fincher has this really nice style of filming that sucks you into the film.
I heard the Swedish version is better, but it doesn't mean the US version is bad.
I saw the Swedish version and I liked it a lot.
