Only the first part of the trilogy is really needed as an alternative to Devil’s Knot, since they cover the same time period. Ultimately, the WM3 were released from prison, although they are legally still considered guilty of the murders. Berlinger and Sinofsky ended up making two more docs about the case: Paradise Lost 2: Revelations in 2000 and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory in 2011. Misskelley and Baldwin were sentenced to life in prison, and Echols to death, but a grassroots movement sprung up to try to save them. Metallica allowed their music to be used in the film, the first time the band had done so, because they were so moved by the plight of the WM3. That first film generated enough controversy that what may have otherwise gone down as a routine miscarriage of justice instead became a cause celebre. The movie they ended up making, Paradises Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, is a verite masterpiece, a modern version of The Crucible in which mass paranoia threatens the innocent and allows the wicked to go unpunished. It quickly became apparent to Berlinger and Sinofsky that all the evidence against the WM3 was circumstantial, that the idea that there was anything ritualistic about the killings was a part of the Satanic Panic of the ’80s and ’90s and that these young men had been singled out because they were weird enough to attract suspicion. Police believed the crime was Satanic in nature and that the murders were part of an arcane ritual. and Jason Baldwin stood accused of murdering three young boys the prior summer. The unforgettable Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. When filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky arrived in West Memphis, Arkansas in 1994 to cover the murder trials of three teenagers, they had no idea what they were in for. Even the more problematic documentaries about the WM3 are preferable to it. But Devil’s Knot botches it very, very badly. It has everything the Oscars love: incredible tragedy, outrageous injustice, and an ending note of inspirational triumph. In fact, the story of the West Memphis Three is so ripe for Hollywood exploitation that it’s honestly surprising that it’s taken this long for it to happen. And West of Memphis struck at just the right time, just as new developments in the case brought it back into the national spotlight.īut that doesn’t mean that a good adaptation of this story couldn’t have been made. The movies of the Paradise Lost trilogy are among the best-known, most important documentaries of modern times. The case of the West Memphis Three has been turned into not one but four docs, and they are anything but low-profile. And it’s not a case like, say, that time a fiction film and a documentary about the Jack Abramoff scandal came out in the same year. From the moment that the production of Devil’s Knot was announced, film lovers the world over noted that it was covering material that had already gone well-trodden by documentaries. In this entry, we recommend that you watch Paradise Lost and West of Memphis. The Doc Option is a column recommending nonfiction works as alternatives to popular dramatic takes on the same or similar stories.
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