Crime Film Documentaries
Instructor: James R. Elkins
"Paradise Lost: Child Murders
at Robin Hood Hills"
(1996)
[2 hrs. 30 mins.] [film by Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky]
"The landmark documentary that sparked an international movement to 'Free the West Memphis Three', "Paradise Lost" investigates the gruesome 1993 murder of three eight-year-old boys and the three teenagers accused of killing them as part of a Satanic ritual. From real-life courtroom drama and clandestine jailhouse interviews to behind-the-scenes strategy meetings and intimate moments with grief-stricken families, acclaimed filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky were granted unprecedented access to all the players involved, capturing the events as they unfolded. ~ Amazon.com
Trailer
Filmmakers on the Film
Joe
Berlinger Talks About His Involvement in the film
video posted on the Arkansas Times website,
June 3, 2011
"Paradise
Lost" directors Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky
Davy Rothbart interview, Grantland, January 12, 2012
Interview
with "Paradise Lost" Director Joe Berlinger
Huffington Post, January 28, 2012
Primary Resources
Update on the West Memphis 3 (for viewers of "Paradise
Lost: Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills"): "Following
a successful decision in 2010 by the Arkansas Supreme Court regarding
newly produced DNA evidence, the West Memphis Three reached a deal with
prosecutors. On August 19, 2011, they entered Alford pleas, which allow
them to assert their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have
enough evidence to convict them. Judge David Laser accepted the pleas
and sentenced the three to time served. They were released with ten-year
suspended sentences, having served 18 years and 78 days in prison."
~ Wikipedia
On the deal that freed the WM3: Deal Frees ‘West Memphis Three' in Arkansas [New York Times, August 20, 2011] :: An insider's view of the legal maneuvers that freed the West Memphis Three [Arkansas Times, Mara Leveritt] :: Three at Last! [Sean Flynn, Gentleman's Quarterly, December 2011]
Damien
Echols on his murder conviction, release, and closure
Josh Modell, A.V. Club, January 18, 2013
A
Death Row Love Story
New York Times, Oct. 13, 2011
Black
& Blue
Boston Magazine,
July, 2013
Returned
from the Land of the Dead
Damien Echols on "Rectify" :: Huffington Post, April 19, 2013]
Q&A:
Eddie Vedder on West Memphis Three
Rolling Stone, Jan. 2, 2013
Damien
Echols's Post-Prison Book: Damien Echols, Life After Death
(New York: Blue Rider Press, 2012) [Echols is also
the author of a self-published memoir, Almost Home: My Life Story
(New York: iUniverse, 2005)
Jason Baldwin's Post-Prison Book: Mara
Leveritt (with Jason Baldwin), Dark Spell: Surviving the Sentence
(Little Rock: Bird Call Press, 2014)
Background on the Case: The best resource on the
WM3 case is Mara Leveritt's Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West
Memphis Three (New York: Atria Books, 2002) [Mara
Leveritt's website] [The Leveritt book is quite good and is required
reading for anyone writing about the WM3 case.][ The Wikipedia
entry on the WM3 case is thorough and extensive, and I recommend it.]
Autoposy:
Crittenden
County Coroner's Office
The WM3 are released from prison (August 19, 2011): Compilation
of videos
Kin of "W. Memphis 3" Victims Uneasy Over Release [5:23 mins.] [CBS News]
Web Resources: For an extensive collection of web
resources on the WM3 case, see: West
Memphis Three Web Resources
Appeals Defense Team: To familiarize yourself
with the issues raised on appeal in this case, watch the videos of the
appeals defense team and their press conference of November 1, 2007. [Damien
Echols Legal Defense Team Press Conference—9:50 mins.] [Press
Conference-pt.2—9:41 mins.] [Press
Conference-pt.3—10:03 mins.] [Press
Conference-pt.4—9:59 mins.] [Press
Conference-pt.5—9:48 mins.] [Press
Conference-pt.6—9:31 mins.] [Press
Conference-pt.7—2:15 mins.] [Press
Conference/Q&A: pt.1—9:57 mins.][Press
Conference/Q&A: pt.2—9:48 mins.][Press
Conference/Q&A: pt.3—9:53 mins.][Press
Conference/Q&A: pt.4—9:46 mins.] [Press
Conference/Q&A: pt.5—4:32 mins.] [Transcript:
Damien Echols Legal Defense Team Press Conference]
Law Review Articles
Reproducing
a Trial: Evidence and Its Assessment in Paradise Lost
[Jennifer L. Mnookin] [For a film studies perspective
on the "Lost Paradise" films, see: "Paradise
Lost" I & II (an essay/review of the two West Memphis Three
documentary films by Andy Opel in Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary
Media)]
Dan Stidham, Haley Fitzgerald & Jason Baldwin, Satanic Panic & Defending the West Memphis Three: How Cultural Differences Can Play a Major Role in Criminal Cases, 42 U. Memphis L.Rev.1 (2012)
Kaytee Vota, The Truth Behind Echols v. State: How an Alford Guilty Plea Saved the West Memphis Three, 45 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 1003 (2012)
Mara Leveritt, Are 'Voices for Justice' Heard?: A Star-Studded Rally on Behalf of the West Memphis Three Prompts the Delicate Question, 33 UALR L. Rev. 137 (2011)
Note [David S. Mitchell, Jr.], Lock 'Em Up and Throw Away the Key: "The West Memphis Three" and Arkansas's Statute for Post-Conviction Relief Based on New Scientific Evidence," 62 Ark. L. Rev. 501 (2009)
Emily Battersby & Wolfgang G. Robinson, Paradise Lost: Media in Injusice and Injustice in Media, 22 Seton Hall J. Sports & Ent. L. 29 (2012)
J. Thomas Sullivan, Brady, Arkansas Rule 17.1,
and Disclosure of Scientific Evidence and Expert Opinion, 35 U. Ark. L.Rev.
245 (2013)
Sydney Schenider, When Innocent Defendants Falsely Confess: Analyzing
the Ramifications of Entering Alford Pleas in the Context of the Burgeoning
Innocence Movement, 103, J. Crim. L. & Criminology 279 (2013)
John H. Blume & Rebecca Helm, "The Unexonerated: Factually Innocent Defendants Who Plead Guilty" (2012) [SSRN]
Additional Journal Articles
King Adkins, Paradise Lost: Documenting a Southern Tragedy, 60 (1) J. Film & Video 14 (2008)
Roger Davis Gatchet & Amanda Davis Gatchet, Hunting Our Bad Selves: Projective Identification and the Case of the West Memphis Three, 81 (5) Western J. Communication 523 (2017)
On the Use of Snitch Testimony
Web Resources
[collected by Professor Elkins for
a course that focused on the WM3 cases]
When
Weasels Smile: Michael Carson on Trial
[4:28 mins.]
"Paradise Lost 2: Revelations" (1999)
[2 hrs. 10 mins.] [film by Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky]
"Horrific, disturbing and absolutely fascinating, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations revisits the chilling mystery at the heart of HBO's award-winning hit, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky bring new insight to the controversial case of a trio of Arkansas teenagers convicted of murdering three 8-year-old boys." ~ Netflix
"Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" (2011)
[2 hrs. 1 min.] [film by
Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky]
"[T]he new installment of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's HBO documentary film series about the notorious 1983 'West Memphis three' child murders, chronicles the 18-year fight to prove the innocence of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, incarcerated for an alleged Satantic ritual killing that the convicted men—and their supporters worldwide—maintain they did not commit. ~ DVD cover
Wikipedia
"West of Memphis" (2012)
[2 hrs. 7 mins.] [Amy Berg director] [Damien Echols & Lorri Davis producers]
West of Memphis" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2012 and at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2012. Sony Pictures Classics scheduled theater release of the film for January 2013. ~ Wikipedia
"The evidence was flimsy and contrived, the confessions extracted under duress, the social prejudice palpable and perjury rife. But it took 17 years of investigation, much of it paid for by the New Zealand film-maker Peter Jackson , to right even partially this gross miscarriage of justice." ~ Philip French, The Observer [review]
Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh
& Philippa Boyens discuss "West of Memphis"
AICN Exclusive, December 5, 2011
Peter
Jackson's West of Memphis: The Tale of Three Wronged Men
The Guardian,
December 21, 2012
Academy Conversations:
West of Memphis
[5:38 mins.] [2012]
Damien Echols and
Lorri Davis 'West of Memphis' Sundance 2012
[6:26 mins.]
You Can't Give
Up The Things That Make Your Life Magical: Damien Echols & Lorri Davis
[3:22 mins.]
Damien Echols: Post-Prison
Damien
Echols: How I Survived Death Row
The Guardian,
May 25, 2013
Jason Baldwin : Post-Prison
Jason Baldwin &
Holly Ballard Interview
[47:20 mins.] [published on Dec.
20, 2013]
Jason Baldwin Interview
[12:50 mins.] [published on Nov.
21, 2013]
Interview with
Jason Baldwin of the West Memphis 3
[1:15:20 mins.] [2018]
Footnote
Deleted
Scene from "Paradise Lost": Necklace
[11:51 mins.] [Discussion between
Fogelman and defense lawyers about laboratory testing
of blood on a necklace and the postponement in the trial granted by Judge
Burnett to have
the testing done.]
