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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Monday, March 16th, 2015 - 4 Comments »
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My Follow-Up Questions For Andrew Jarecki & Marc Smerling about The Jinx

After looking at the footage of the doc again, I believe the second interview—including the Times Square walk and trips to family real estate—was shot in early April 2012. I also believe that the interview they say in the film that they had “leverage” to get was a third interview, not the second one.

Anyway… lots of questions and followups to ask…

Question: When, specifically, did you realize that the non-interview ramblings of Durst in the first interview might have editorial value? Were you aware he had a propensity to talk to himself at that time and did you hope he would?

Question: How long was the second interview? Was it, as it was shown, almost exclusively about building to the moment of showing him the two signatures? Did oh do the Times Square walk before that? When you ended the interview, as seen on TV, did you actually end the interview or was there any expectation that you might continue?

Question: Why would you leave Durst confessing to have faked his alibi in his wife’s murder case out of the film? Was this about maintaining tension until the end?

Question: Why is there surveillance footage of Saraf and Durst in Los Angeles? When was it taken? Why were you filming Durst without his knowledge at that point? Was it before or after the incriminating letter? Was it before or after the second interview?

Question: Were you trying for a third interview for a year or longer without success, under the assumption that Bob Durst might still think you were on his side? When exactly did the call in which Durst seems to abruptly hang up on Andrew take place?

Question: What triggered your first contact with police? Was there ongoing communication? Did you have anything to add, aside from the incriminating envelope and the bathroom audio?

Question: What happened in 2014? Why didn’t the film come out that year? What would the film have looked like without the bathroom audio?

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4 Comments »

4 Responses to “My Follow-Up Questions For Andrew Jarecki & Marc Smerling about The Jinx”

  1. Breedlove says:
    March 17, 2015 at 7:49 am

    DP, been enjoying your thoughts on this on Twitter & glad you wrote a bit more. With regards to your third question, Durst’s alibi, I’m a little confused…are you talking about him saying he had a drink with the neighbor after he took her to the train station? Because that was in the film, pretty early on I thought.

  2. David Poland says:
    March 17, 2015 at 4:20 pm

    Jarecki indicated in the NYT interview that Durst admitted on tape that he lied about his alibi regarding his wife. Did I forget them using that footage?

  3. Breedlove says:
    March 17, 2015 at 6:44 pm

    Yeah I’m pretty sure they used that…he describes telling the cops some made-up story about having a drink with his neighbor in the hopes that they (the cops) will “leave him alone” and they get the neighbor’s take on it as well.

  4. arisp says:
    March 17, 2015 at 7:58 pm

    How and why does any of this matter? It’s a documentary narrative. Durst said and did what we saw. The order doesn’t matter. What matters is creating a gripping narrative. It’s not a Wikipedia entry.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon