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The Staircase
Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, presents a gripping courtroom thriller, offering a rare and revealing inside look at a high-profile murder trial. In 2001, author Michael Peterson was arraigned for the murder of his wife Kathleen, whose body was discovered lying in a pool of blood on the stairway of their home. Granted unusual access to Peterson's lawyers, home and immediate family, de Lestrade's cameras capture the defense team as it considers its strategic options. "The staircase" is an engrossing look at contemporary American justice that features more twists than a legal bestseller.
| Release : | 2004 |
| Rating : | 7.8 |
| Studio : | |
| Crew : | Writer, |
| Cast : | |
| Genre : | Drama Documentary |
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Reviews
Pretty Good
I wanted to but couldn't!
I gave it a 7.5 out of 10
It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.
In many ways this series became what it captured - an exercise in both the tedium and personalities involved in a lengthy court case. The entertainment which was gripping at times, is balanced by many many scenes of the protagonist making dinner, smoking, standing on his soap-box, all things which could have been left out for a sharper watch. Much of the entertainment for me was some of the witnesses and their fruitiness; their levels of expertise stacking up against each other on opposite sides of the case; and the way Peterson, some of his family, and his legal team seem to skate through the whole process with a crazy amount of levity as if escaping conviction was a fait accompli so let's all joke about Peterson going to jail. I suppose some of their behaviour could have been curtailed at Peterson's insistence because they were on his coin, but it must have fed his self-belief (and as others have pointed out, his over-confidence) so he let it be. There's enjoyment to be had, but I found much of it is ironic enjoyment. Give yourself a couple of rainy days to wade through all shots of cooking and Peterson's tangential diatribes which his legal team were paid a pretty penny to listen to.
This was completely a biased tale of a bizarre man that ultimately is painstakingly unsatisfying. The editing is atrocious and could have been trimmed at least by half and knowing that he had a 15 year relationship with the films editor completely discredits this film among many other things.
Good documentary....Want to be a GREAT documentary?!?!.... Toooo one sided to the defense's case. Don't only depict your side by the angles you portray....Film both sides & let the audience decided as a jury themselves!!!! To bad NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE. NEITHER side could ACTUALLY prove their case!!!! Is a guilty man getting off or a free man getting crucified. Only Michael & Kathleen will EVER know!!!! YOU DON'T GET THOSE WOUNDS FROM 3 stairs & it's sad that people will defend NO MATTER WHAT for the prestige of a case!!
This all came out 14 years ago. Before Netflix and it already was original haha. Unless it's an update I'm not aware of.
