Documentaries were once staid affairs that viewers treated like eating their cultural vegetables. Errol Morris and Ken Burns elevated them into cinematic narrative, only to see them given a provocative, if rakish, makeover by the likes of Super Size Me and Bowling for Columbine, which found a way to mainstream the difference.
Add our affection for the lurid and thirst for consumption driving the need for content, and you see docuseries forced to keep pace with episodic binge TV arguably also too long bent toward chronicling the offbeat, criminal, and strange, those margins we love to gawk at with a voracious appetite for every sickening detail.
A nail-biter drawn off a mass of footage, interviews, and documents, the show was gifted a ratings surge when Durst himself was arrested in real life just a day before the jaw-dropper of a finale aired. Durst has pleaded not guilty, and his trial has been postponed until spring But The Jinx skillfully accomplished what The Vow did not: a mastery of the avalanche of footage and time line leaps that never left us stuck in the extremely myopic tedium of coordinating a takedown.
About that footage. See All. More From Our Brands. Expand the sub menu Film. Expand the sub menu TV. Expand the sub menu What To Watch. Expand the sub menu Music.
Expand the sub menu Awards. Expand the sub menu Video. Expand the sub menu What to Hear. Expand the sub menu Digital. We even see her first-ever conversation with Rainere, a man who would ultimately lead to her downfall, during one of his famous overnight volleyball games. The Vow lays bare the many ways Raniere and his team used this philosophy — on its face a tool for emotional empowerment — to shame people into suppressing their doubts about the program.
Piesse began to experience her own misgivings while working her way down the Stripe Path, a process that soon dominated all of her waking hours and drove her deeper into debt. When she missed a meeting after nearly passing out from exhaustion, Piesse turned to Vanguard for guidance. So, from the beginning, I think it sounded crazy to many of my team that we would ultimately be able to sit down with various people. One thing to remember is that, because we are both Middle Eastern American, Egyptian American, and have lived between both cultures during the War on Terror, we have traversed people who have a weaponized, hostile relationship with each other, and have had to speak to all sides.
All my life. I know that seems weird for people who have not had to do such a thing. But you also described it, Jehane, as a Rashomon -like project, which is fascinating. It makes us wonder if we can ever really understand the truth. Is that what this project really is about? What would you like people to come away with from watching The Vow?
This project is 10 years in the making, for me. And I think that what I hope people would get out of it has changed along the way. What do we want people to get out of it? There have been so many skeptics about both stories. This story can make us pause and realize that our minds are a lot more vulnerable than we think they are. But at the same time, that vulnerability can be exploited and can be taken advantage of and can be compromised by another agent.
That situation can happen to anybody. I hope this can inspire people to have radical empathy for each other. The second season is set to air on HBO in Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.
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Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. HBO How does a successful, self-aware, well-adjusted person get sucked into a cult? Sarah Edmondson, one of the subjects of The Vow , in footage from the series. Alissa Wilkinson Going into the project, did you have a sense of how it was going to end? Jehane Noujaim Absolutely flying blind.
Jehane Noujaim There is no way that I would have been able to build the kind of trust and access with people who were, in real time, questioning all the decisions they had made over the previous 10 years. Jehane Noujaim Right. Jehane Noujaim After the fact. Karim Amer After the fact. Karim Amer Absolutely.
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