MovieChat Forums > O.J.: Made in America (2016) Discussion > I hope the makers of this learn how to m...

I hope the makers of this learn how to make films


Watched the Episode 1

and it seems like it is made for OJ's family and friends

Any other person who would like it has no life

If you can spend 5 hours to watch 'OJ is so great', 'OJ is the best' being repeated 700 times, then seriously u have nothing better to do in life

Would give the Episode 2 a slight chance, if it also turns out to be another idolatory snoozefest, i would stop watching

reply

Keep watching, my man, keep watching. The soft-focus hagiography of part one is absolutely warranted and necessary. I knew next to nothing about OJ Simpson when the Brown-Goldman murders happened: I was a preteen then, so the significance of his earlier celebrity, especially in the context of America's heaving civil rights conflicts, was entirely lost on me. This documentary lays out that social context in lucid, persuasive strokes, considering several larger complex social issues as much as it specifically considers the Simpson trial, so it does take its time. But the film's "dramatic arc" or emotional spine is OJ's glorious rise and his terrible fall, so it's important we see how people felt about him before the murders: not just those who knew him, but the many, many, many more who never knew him but loved him anyway. He was a legit hero in college football and a widely-liked media personality. Which only underscores the horror of how his life turned out. This isn't so much a true-crime doco as it is an American tragedy writ large and long. James Ellroy wrote long ago that the Simpson case was really "A Russian Novel set in LA" - Made in America is as close to that hypothetical novel as anyone could ever ask for.

reply