Elliot's Watching week of 6-27-21: Golden State Killer doc

 Elliot’s Watching week of 6-27-21

Liz Garbus’s true-crime documentary I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2020), based on the posthumously published book by Michelle McNamara, is a harrowing account of MM’s pursuit of the murder/rapist known as the Golden State Killer who terrorized California communities through a string of unsolved house invasions in the 1970s and 80s that involved extreme cruelty and weirdly morbid behavior. I won’t give everything away, though it’s important to note three aspects of this unique project: First, MM, a young mother married to well-known actor Patton Oswalt, devoted most of her life to trying to track this killer, who had been largely (and criminally I would say) ignored for much of his reign of terror, mostly because police departments notoriously fail to cooperate across jurisdictional lines and also because the communities want to downplay violent crime in their midst to protect property values (!) I guess; second, writing her book actually cost MM her life, as she felt pressured on deadlines and expectations and eventually addicted to Rx that killed her - her editor and agents have some soul searching to do; and third, this can be an extremely upsetting film, as many of the dozens of victims cooperated with the filmmakers and told their stories in horrifying detail. With those warnings, it’s a brave and necessary documentary that still may have some repercussions, as amateur detectives are at present seeking info on a string of unsolved murders in the Chicago area - where MM was raised and where her interest in a frightful killing near her home led her to her career as a crime writer and case solver.