O.J.: made in America

Cinema | November 9th, 2016

Two decades have passed since the surreal and shocking events that transformed Orenthal James Simpson from USC legend, Heisman Trophy recipient, Buffalo Bills star, professional football Hall of Fame inductee, sports broadcaster, and actor into a divisive reminder of America’s ongoing struggle to come to terms with its legacy of racism.

And while the seemingly bottomless coverage of the so-called “Trial of the Century” may have exhausted widespread interest in the years following Simpson’s acquittal, Ezra Edelman’s epic reexamination of the case, and the larger issues surrounding it, is a raw and meaningful reflection that regularly transcends the lurid, true crime components of Simpson’s twisted path.

Following a Sundance Film Festival premiere, Edelman’s sprawling, five-part, 467-minute documentary – part of ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” series – played theatrically in a limited engagement before television and on-demand availability. Edelman’s ambitions are immediately apparent in the more than 70 newly recorded interviews with instrumental figures whose own lives came to be at least partially defined by proximity to Simpson.

Additionally, Edelman draws on a massive collection of archival images covering both Simpson’s rise to national recognition and the filmmaker’s parallel concern: the history of discrimination, profiling, and oppression of black people by the Los Angeles Police Department.

As a result of the episodic nature of the primarily chronological presentation of the narrative, viewers will no doubt find some segments more compelling than others. For example, the meticulous and detailed background mined in the early chapters works infinitely better than the late coverage of Simpson’s bewildering downward spiral into a burning labyrinth of sleaze-soaked cash grabs in Florida and Nevada. The Las Vegas sports memorabilia robbery case, in which Simpson was sentenced to a term of 33 years in prison, tilts the saga into tabloid territory. One can sense Edelman’s reservations whenever dealer Tom Riccio opens his mouth.

Perhaps the most perceptive criticism of “O.J.: Made in America” was written by A. O. Scott, who observed that “the film, which so persuasively treats law enforcement racism as a systemic problem, can’t figure out how to treat violence against women with the same kind of rigor or nuance.” In his review, Scott goes on to recognize that, in contrast to the examination of Simpson as a complex symbol, the fate of Nicole Brown “is treated as an individual tragedy, and there seems to be no political vocabulary available to the filmmakers to understand what happened to her. The deep links between misogyny and American sports culture remain unexamined.”

Considering the evidence of battery and abuse suffered by Nicole Brown at the hands of her husband, it’s a fair question to wonder why Edelman elected not to explore domestic violence with the same kind of thoughtfulness or thoroughness expended on the entrenched racist ideologies woven into the fabric of lawmaking and law enforcement.

Edelman emphatically speaks to Simpson’s deliberate assimilation prior to the murders of Brown and Goldman, and then connects the dots to the reclamation of the defendant by communities of color over the course of the trial. Those two themes are presented with substance and clarity.

Simpson will be eligible for parole in October of 2017.

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