http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rExhihAZGxg
Aileen Carol Wuornos
"She was a prostitute who admitted to killing six middle-aged men in 1989 and 1990, luring some of them by posing as a stranded motorist in the Central Florida area. After trials involving her detailed confession, pleas of self-defense, prosecuting testimony by her lesbian lover, and occasional abusive outbursts towards the jury, Wuornos was convicted and sentenced to death. Appeals over the next 10 years were finally stopped at her request, and she was executed by lethal injection in 2002."
Types of footage used in the opening: Interveiws, Archive footage, real life news bullitens, photos, voice over. Keeping the story going and keep the audiences attention. The function of the news bulletins and archive footage is to make it more beliveable and the voice over is used to in "the voice of God" style, which makes the audience belive him.
The voice over gives infortmation about Aileen and her life it also tells us about the people she had murdered and the viticms family members. Also it tells us about her execution.
We find out about Aileen (the centeral subject) and how she is a bit mental. We find out she is on death row.
The documentary opening is simalir to the opening of a fiction film as we get introduced to the main characters. Also we know about the situation plot and it attempts to attract the audience with the visuals.
Name of documentary: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER
Date of production: 2003
Film maker/ producer: Nick Broomfield
Sub genre: Crime
Context of production: Michiganc anf Flordia
Purpose: the purpose is to inform people, expose how it happened and reasons for it and also maybe educate people.
Use of selection: Aileen being interviewed, interveiws with friends and family, a few shots at the begining of the documentary of the victims family, interviews with people who knews Aileen. Their was no footage or interviews with the police or with the victims family members.
Narrative sequences and editing: There are a lot of interveiws then footage of were she lived and voice over of Aileens background it keeps the veiwer hooked and interested all the way through and builds suspense of the final day she actually gets executed.
Use of interviews: The interviews were very basic to give you a full understanding of the simpicity of the documentary the camera is often held still in place and the sound is seemingly uneditted to give that live feel.
Noddies: they are frequently use throughout the interview
Presence of crew: At somepoints you can see the crew but most of it is audible.
Non-diegetic sound and use of music: Music related at the her, and music she wanted played at her funeral.
Activity 1
As the documenatry is only about Aileens side of the story and not the polices veiws or victems family members veiws. I quite like Aileen, to me she does seem a vaguely insaine, however very honest and is happy with being executed. I think she is very brave for being able to want to do that. After hearing what her childhood and life before inprisonment was like i had a small understanding of why Aileen is like how she is. However that does not jusitfy killing men. She confuses me alot as she says how it was self defence but does not want to admit it as her execution will be changed again. That leaves me thinking if that was true why would you not want justice. However she has made the police out to be corrupt, if these were true accusations they would of been looked in to. I respect the Aileen for being able to own up for what she has done and accept the fait or death.
I believe Nick Broomfield, did show Aileen as what she was, he showed interviews of her admitting what really happened and her admitting she should be killed and if she was let out she would kill again. However he only interviewed friends and family of Aileen who are overall going to have a postivie veiw of her. Their was no interveiws with police as i said before so she could be really different when not being filmed. I think Nick Brromfield wanted her to be percieved as generally an ok person ad how her death was unjustified and how there should of been more interveiws and infortmation given from Aileen to the police.
Im not sure i belive Aileen deserved the death penatly, as firstly i belive death is not the answer, it menas they have done a sin and dont really have to suffer more than two minutes for it. Other people may think differently but i belive they should serve their time in misery and learn of they have done is so wrong. I dont think their was enough research and invetigations to be able to kill her straight away.
Newspaper articles of Aileen
'I can't stand being in here, it's just too awful'
As his film Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer opens, documentary director Nick Broomfield talks to Polly Corrigan
Having claimed that the seven murders she committed were in self-defence, Wuornos changed her story at the last moment, saying she acted in cold blood and wished to die immediately. In the film, Broomfield seems convinced that this admission is more to do with the fact that she simply could not cope with life in jail. Broomfield describes death row as "a form of legalised torture." By the time Wuornos was executed, she had copied the bible out three times by hand. Her mental state was precarious, to say the least.
While Broomfield never denies the fact that Wuornos was a murderer, she is portrayed in the film as an essentially sympathetic character, and the murders she committed as the desperate acts of a woman who had led a tragic life. It becomes clear that Aileen, far from being the man-hating, lesbian killer portrayed by the US media, is herself the victim of scandalous abuse and violence, homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction and possibly even incest.
The film makes a devastating case against the death penalty and although Broomfield remains reasonably neutral throughout the film, in person he is quietly outraged.
"You either say we have the declaration of human rights so killing someone is unlawful, unacceptable - or you don't. You can't then be executing people yourself; it rubbishes the whole thing. The whole idea is to break the circle of violence. Aileen had an incredibly violent life and her execution was just a completion of that violence."
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