MovieChat Forums > The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2015) Discussion > My interpretation of Bob Durst's 'confes...

My interpretation of Bob Durst's 'confession'

posted 9 years ago by dannyboy-78366
20 replies | jump to latest

I would like to disclose beforehand that this is the first time I am posting to IMDB, that English is my 3rd language, and that I am not a psychologist.

The (in)famous monologue that Bob Durst is heard speaking off the record to the hot microphone, sounded more like a dialogue to me. The psychoanalytic model states that the mind is structured on 3 levels. I will explain the Ego and the Superego in order for my 'dialogue' to make sense.

The Ego is the I, the entity who acts, talks, the person we think we are, our identity. In this case, the Ego is BD (Bob Durst).

The Superego (SE) is the entity that contains all the prohibitions, judgments, guilt, everything that tells us we are doing something wrong or we *beep* up. Paranoid people have big Superegos, psychopaths none.

What if what we heard was an overt conversation between BD and SE? We do that all the time, usually to ourselves only.

SE (talking to Bob): There it is. You're caught.
BD: You're right, of course. But (explaining) you can't imagine.
... (2 sentences omitted, which I cannot explain)
SE: Arrest him.
BD: What a disaster.
SE: He (Jarecki confronting handwritings) was right.
BD: I was wrong.
AE: And the burping!
BC: I’m having difficulty with the question... what did I do?
SE: Killed them all, of course!

Of course it was Bob Durst speaking all the time, and why it sounds like confession from a lucid individual.
But for me, it was Durst whining to his guilty Superego (who WANTED Durst to confess) about painting himself into a corner because of his vanity.

This would explain a little the contradictions of such a disturbed personality as Robert Durst.

[–] mussobrennon 9 years ago

I think that's pretty much what happened

[–] dannyboy-78366 9 years ago

I am not sure if you are being facetious. If not, thanks.

I was becoming worried about no comment about my post after 17 hours.

[–] Rob-O-Cop 9 years ago

Your English is good.
I think it could have been him playing devils advocate with himself.
He knows people think he's guilty and he knows there's practically nothing he can say to convince people either way because of the nut case he comes across as.
He doesn't take the situation with the gravity it deserves and is stupid enough and irreverent to think its ok to make jokes about it if only to himself cos he thinks no one is listening, but somebody was.
And he hangs himself, and probably tells himself he deserves it,

Whether he did it or not is irrelevant, in the mess that is his head and his life those details don't come into play for him. It's all about internal justice for him, justice in his head.

[–] dannyboy-78366 9 years ago

Agreed. When watching the series, I could not avoid the feeling that Durst WANTED to be caught. Otherwise, it's inconceivable how someone educated and smart as he would misspell Beverly (twice!) in his own handwriting.
(Speculating) He must carry a horrendous guilt of not being able to prevent his mother's suicide, and hate for his father (for doing nothing about it; if Durst's description of the event is the truth).
The extent of this person's flaws frighten me.

[–] Rob-O-Cop 9 years ago

I'm saying there is a possibility he didn't kill his wife or his friend (he admits to dismembering his neighbor), and that his 'confession' isn't necessarily a confession at all, it's a man in deep circumstantial evidence who has lost all concept of the gravity of his situation and opens his stupid mouth and says stupid things to himself.
The address on the note and letter is kind of damning though. Still this is a really good example of how proof, solid proof, can be evasive in the face or very damning circumstantial evidence.
It's possible he's an inept social trainwreck in the wrong place at the wrong time saying the wrong things, it's possible......

[–] dannyboy-78366 9 years ago

We will never know the truth. Maybe even Durst does not know the truth anymore.

I am sure you know the saying: there are no facts, just versions of facts.

Have you seen the "Making a Murderer' series? It shows a reverse situation: a probably innocent person who is sentenced for life on flimsy evidence... after spending 18 years in jail for a crime he definitely did not commit.

Thanks for your feedback.

[–] Rob-O-Cop 9 years ago

That's a good point about maybe Durst doesn't even know the truth about himself any more. But I'm not so pessimistic that we won't ever know. There's still progress being made. I does really illuminate that in the world where we're lulled into a sense of security that CSI style science will prove all truths, that's really not the world we live in yet.
I haven't watched Making a Murderer yet. All the talk of it drove me back to check in on this story. Aside from Durst's story being a really interesting one the film makers presented it in a rally interesting way, from the open credits music through to the leading structure of how they revealed events to us. The handwriting scene apparently wasn't the last interaction they had with him.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] Rajpe 9 years ago

Dyslexia might be the answer since education and intelligence don't necessarily have anything to do with it. On the other hand I think he made a lot of mistakes (eg. difficulties when getting rid of his neighbours body, not altering his handwriting, changing his stories about the evening when his first wife disappeared). He is a pretty good liar though.

[–] dannyboy-78366 9 years ago

Interesting point of view: complex, dangerous minds can be cunning and crass for so many reasons. Who knows under other circumstances what Bob Durst could have achieved. It's always fascinating, when a what-if is applied to people like... let's say, Hitler being accepted by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Then comes the concept of evil. Is evil related to timing as well? Thanks for the feedback, it gave me food for thought.

[–] fairy_depp 9 years ago

Some very interesting points made. I don't think the dialogue in the bathroom is proof - he could just be being sarcastic like 'oh of course you think I'm guilty, everyone does anyway'.. The letter is pretty damning evidence though, I do kind of agree that he may have been trying to get caught - even stealing the sandwich, he's setting himself up.

[–] km_UK 9 years ago

Wow, just watched the last episode and slightly gobsmacked personally. Being an editor and the daughter of a therapist, my take on it is (for merely what it's worth!!) he's got split personality disorder (more of a psychosis than ego/superego conflict I think) (MPD:http://skepdic.com/mpd.html) from childhood trauma. He wretches on camera (the burping) and he wretches again in the toilet, that's a PTSD/flashback reaction. Not just from his mother's suicide but the murders themselves. His father clearly wasn't able to contain and heal the trauma of what he saw. He lacks empathy for the victims but from what I saw he's not aspergers, there were times when he could recognise the emotional reactions of people that he was dealing with, aspergers struggle to do that, but he often spoke about himself in the second person "that was Bob" etc hence split personality brought on by disassociation from trauma. The excessive blinking: sometimes people do that naturally under lights when they're being filmed and actors have to train themselves out of doing it, and editors still have to cut around it! (there's a whole book written about it called Blink of an Eye) but it was marked that he did it more during certain conversational topics, when he was more defensive he blinked more. To my mind, he's guilty as hell.

[–] mulholland_empire 9 years ago

i like your split personality theory, remember when he's in starbucks paying for HIS cup of coffee? He asked what do we owe you? instead of what do i owe you?

[–] GTizzle 8 years ago

You use the word "facetious" over "sarcastic" and you expect us to believe English is your third language?

Um yeah.... I call SHENANIGANS!!!

[–] rogueleader-43058 8 years ago

That's exactly what I thought happened. It isn't a confession. It's an old man having a conversation with himself and being sarcastic.

[–] aahronheim 8 years ago

SE: He (Jarecki confronting handwritings) was right.
BD: I was wrong.

Actually, I thought it was clear that Durst was referring here to the lawyer who'd tried to discourage Durst from doing the interviews. I don't think Durst meant Jarecki. I think he was simply saying he, Durst, was wrong to ignore his lawyer's recommendations.

[–] Lidage 8 years ago

that's also what i thought.

[–] plectrum-1 8 years ago

Another possibility is that he knew he was being set up going into interview and knew he was being recorded. Let's say he found out about the letter and the handwriting analysis, so now there was a good case against him and he'd have to defend himself in court. His best chance may be to plead insanity. So now he needs to convince the world that he's schizophrenic. The interview is the perfect opportunity to create some 'evidence' that he is in fact insane.

As they said, he's a smart *beep*

[–] rgibson-20 8 years ago

I don't think we can believe anything Durst says, whether inculpatory or exculpatory.

[–] hansel714 8 years ago

Good analysis, except that the Freudian super ego and ego theory has been disproved. It's only literary critics who use them for writing their articles.