O.j.: Made In America

The Academy Awards’ Longest Contenders

... on ESPN, clocks in at seven hours, 47 minutes. advertisement | advertise on newsday. The previous record holder, Sergey Bondarchuk’s Russian epic “War and Peace,” which went on to win the 1966 best foreign-language film Oscar, was a mere seven hours, 7 minutes. Story Will Natalie Portman win her 2 nd Oscar this year? TAKE ANOTHER 'BITE'Oscar no-shows who won big at ‘87 ceremony Story Flashback Friday: Oscar winners from ’07 ceremony. While “War and Peace” is clearly the lengthiest Oscar-winning film in any category, things are less clear when it strictly comes to best picture. Based on story alone, the magnolias-and-moonlight classic “Gone With the Wind” (1939) runs three hours, 40 minutes. But then if you add on its overture, intermission, entr’act and exit music, the movie finishes at three hours, 54 minutes. The narrative of “Lawrence of Arabia” actually runs one minute longer than that of “Gone With the Wind,” but with its musical extras, the total ...

Made In America Is A Sprawling Epic On Race In America

... 1995 murder trial, when decades of police racism made the defense’s accusation of an LAPD conspiracy seem plausible. The defense labored to portray Simpson as a symbol of black oppression; to make their defendant seem “more black,” they even planted photos of Simpson with black people in his house. Court discussions turned from the incriminating evidence against Simpson to racial injustice, and acquittal was framed as payback for Rodney King. “People who didn’t have that experience in life, they didn’t understand why so many black people were connected to this, why they were rooting for [Simpson] — whether they were actually rooting for him or rooting for something bigger than him,” Edelman said. When the predominantly black jury acquitted Simpson, for many black people signified that the justice system was finally treating them fairly. For most white people, however, it was an appalling case of a ...

Moonlight’ Wins Best Picture At Oscars After ‘la La Land’ Was Given The Award First By Mistake

... momentum. But Trump’s travel ban put the spotlight on Iran’s entry, “The Salesman,” whose director, Asghar Farhadi, said that he would boycott the ceremony in protest — a decision that may have ultimately helped his film win. Anousheh Ansari, an American-Iranian businesswoman, accepted the award for “The Salesman” and read a message from Farhadi. The note said he was not attending in solidarity with immigrants “who have been disrespected by the inhumane law,” referring to the Trump administration’s travel ban. Among nonfiction films, Ava Du Vernay’s much-esteemed look at mass incarceration, “13 th,” was campaigned for aggressively by Netflix and the civil rights-themed “I Am Not Your Negro” surged late in the season. But the nearly eight-hour, is-it-a-miniseries-or-is-it-a-film “O. J.: Made in America” was named best documentary. In accepting the award, Ezra Edelman, the film’s director, dedicated the award to Nicole Brown Simpson, Ronald Goldman and “the victims of police violence, police brutality, racially motivated violence and criminal injustice.”. A host’s balancing act. Kimmel, an Everyman schtick carefully in place, ...

Made In America’ On His Oscars Night Plans And Why O.j. Still Matters

... he’s responsible for this.” It was just bizarre, surreal circumstances. And, frankly, at a certain point while that was going on, the game was going to start, and I remember a few people being glued to the TV watching O. J. And I was like, “OK, I’m going to go downstairs now to the other TV.” I was more interested in the game. Ezra Edelman at the DGA Awards on Feb. 4. (Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP). You’ve talked about what O. J. meant to you as a kid. What did you like about him. I was a huge sports fan as a kid, and I played a lot of schoolyard football. I was 5 years old when he retired from football, so it’s not as if I watched him play in real time. But [I saw] the highlights of him playing for the Buffalo Bills. I was very attracted to just him as this athletic god; the balletic way he made his way down a football field was very alluring to someone who was fascinated by sports and ...

Made In America’ Director On Trump Parallels And Why He’s Waiting To See ‘american Crime Story

... fixated on the specific characters and Marcia Clark changing her hair. The trial became this referendum on something else. It became about where we were at that time in the city of Los Angeles as far as criminal justice went. Somehow we lost sight of that. This is why history is important. This is why documentary storytelling is important. It can take two decades to be able to look at that moment in a sober fashion and to look at how we got to that place. The film includes graphic pictures from the crime scene of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman’s bodies. Why did you show those images. The trial became about everything but those two victims. The brutality of that crime got lost. I felt it was necessary to starkly remind people that two lives were lost and they were lost in this brutal fashion. Everyone got caught up in their own personal politics and how they aligned with the trial, but in the end this should have been about these two people who were murdered. If you were someone who ...

Oscar-winner Ezra Edelman On Making His Epic Documentary Oj

... what sways it, how it is perverted, whether or not, as Martin Luther King would have put it, the arc of history is bending towards it. Different qualities of justice come into play in Edelman’s film: social, personal, legal, even karmic. But there’s also the matter of doing a story – and history – justice. In that respect, you could say Edelman was well placed to tell this story. Washington DC-raised, Yale-educated and a self-described “sports nerd”, he cut his teeth in factual sports TV. “I’ve always sought to tell stories that use sport as a lens to talk about bigger issues,” he says. I grew up in a very political house. What seeped into me was a deep sense of justice – and fairness. Edelman is also the son of two respected lawyers: his Jewish father worked for Robert Kennedy and the Clinton administration; his African American ...

Made In America' For Best Picture At The 2017 Oscars

... the meteoric rise and fall of Orenthal James Simpson, the black football star and actor who was acquitted in the 1994 murders of his white ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. With the possible exception of Moonlight, no film this year — or perhaps even of the last 20 years — has rendered such a singular, complex and powerful portrait of black American life. But OJ: Made in America will not win the Academy Award for best picture this Sunday. It wasn't even nominated in the category, nor for best director. It was nominated for just one Oscar: best documentary feature. Despite being eligible for awards in the non-documentary categories — including best picture, best director and best editing — not a single doc has been nominated for best picture since the academy started recognizing the medium in  1942. There's no good justification for this, besides the academy's stubborn habit of failing to appreciate the full breadth of documentaries' artistic merit. Source: You Tube. Oscars politics are tricky. When it comes to best picture, academy voters tend to ...

Made In America For Best Documentary

... like racial divisions, police incompetency, domestic violence, and celebrity heroism, it is a deeply captivating and often harrowing cinematic experience. At times, the series felt unbelievable. The moment it was proved that the blood in O. J.’s car matched the blood of the two victims, when it was shown that the footprints at the crime scene matched a pair of rare designer shoes that O. J. owned, and the lack of a convincing alibi presented by Simpson, it was hard to grasp the fact that he was found not guilty. After a trial that lasted over eight months, it was impossible to believe that the jury came to a decision in less than four hours. Every episode hits the viewer with intense, gripping detail. The in-depth interviews of jurors, the head prosecutor, the family of one of the victims, and friends of Nicole and O. J. bring you into the trial and into the minds of those involved. Marcia Clark, the prosecutor, translated an immense feeling of ...

Made In America’ Reveals

... businesses and controlled finances — he was unlike anyone before him. He was the most recognized sports figure of his era … he was stinkin’ O. J. It is entirely true, while watching the first few episodes of the documentary, I was under the “O. J.-effect.” I liked him. I couldn’t help but respect the guy. His smile was genuine and his attitude infectious. Even his goal of “transcending race” was admirable. He wanted to be O. J. and nothing else. Even at the trial and the years following, he could woo people with ease … even when he was pretty-much-a-guaranteed-murderer. “Yeah, he probably killed two people … but, dang, he is likable.”. Slowly, as the 80 s closed and 90 s began, you started to hear about the other side to this super-star. Rage. Anxiety. Paranoia. It wasn’t surprising, however, because he was always above us. He sought to be separate: he would brag ...

Made In America' Producer Talks Oscars And The O.j. Zeitgeist

... figure out how to go about tackling something like this story, which is so comprehensive and had so many moving parts. Obviously, the issues come up in terms of the culture today: How would that trial play now? How would the media coverage be different? Attitudes have not changed that much in terms of, say, race or domestic violence. We talk about them differently and maybe a little more, but we haven’t solved these problems. Though I can’t speculate on the parole thing. I know nothing more than he’s up for it. What do you think caused this cultural vogue in the last year around O. J.? There was your documentary and the FX show, The People vs. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. I think the 20 th anniversary had something to do with it. We all look to anniversaries to reflect, and the 20 th anniversary [in 2014] of the murders and of the trial verdict [in 2015] were in the ether. And certainly in terms of celebrity culture and reality shows, that trial ...

Made In America’ Director Dedicates Oscar To Victims Of Police Violence

... awakening. It was a loss of innocence, as far as how young black men are treated by police, and by the criminal justice system.”. He added about making the docu: “I definitely channeled my worldview, my relationship to O. J. before this happened, but also my experience growing up, and experiencing the world the way I did.”. Edelman was then asked about the resonance of the Simpson, which this year stemmed both his documentary and The People Vs. O. J. Simpson. “History is past, but it’s present. I can’t speak for the FX series, but I know that when we were offered the chance to make this movie, it was clear the story that was covered and told 20-something years ago, we were missing something,” he said. “We were missing the context, how we ended up where we did at that trial. It’s an American story about ...