Nick Broomfield is an accomplished documentarian, among his recent plaudits being an International Documentary Association Award nomination last October for Tales of the Grim Sleeper, which is slated to debut Monday, April 27, on HBO. An official selection of the 2014 Telluride, Toronto and New York film festivals, Tales of the Grim Sleeper delves into the “Grim Sleeper” murders, which took place in South Central Los Angeles from 1987 to 2007. Lonnie Franklin was arrested for the murders, captured as a result of an accidental DNA match linking him to 20 victims.
Tales of the Grim Sleeper sheds light not only on Franklin but also the neighborhood where the crimes occurred as well as how these killings could go unsolved for so many years. In fact, the public was not even made aware that a serial murderer was on the loose until some 20 years after the killing spree began.
The documentary reveals a grave injustice that extends far beyond the case itself. The case was not a priority for the Los Angeles Police Department–and coverage of the killings was sparse at best, sadly for a lengthy stretch of years during which the dissemination of information would have put African-American women in South Central on alert and thus might have saved lives that instead were lost. It’s estimated that some 100 women were sexually assaulted and murdered by the Grim Sleeper,
At a press conference, then L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that the arrest of Franklin was the result of two decades of exhaustive detective work by the LAPD, a declaration chronicled in news footage that appears in the documentary and rings hollow based on what’s uncovered by Broomfield.
Tales of the Grim Sleeper features interviews with people who knew Franklin and his alleged victims. Along the way, Broomfield crossed paths with Pam Brooks, a recovered addict and former prostitute who becomes a guide for Broomfield, helping him navigate his way around the neighborhood and leading him to women who managed to escape from Franklin but were never interviewed by the police. She also plays a key role in getting Franklin’s son Chris to talk about his father on camera. It was Chris’ DNA that almost matched DNA found on the 20 murder victims, leading the police to Lonnie Franklin as a suspect. The elder Franklin proved to be a DNA match, according to the LAPD.
The documentary also introduces us to neighborhood activists Margaret Prescod and Nana Gyamfi of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, who have been working for years to sound the alarm, pointing out that the case would have received far more attention in an affluent community. Prescod explains that police used a slang term, “NHI” (“no human involved”), when a victim was a prostitute, drug addict or gang member. Even after Franklin’s arrest, Prescod has been leading the charge for justice, exclaiming, “We’re here to say, loud and clear, that every life is of value. Could you imagine if these murders had happened in Beverly Hills?”
Broomfield set up an office in Leimert Park, near the South Central L.A. neighborhood where he was filming. Gradually, with the help of Brooks, he builds trust in the community with locals coming to his office to share their recollections of and experiences with Lonnie Franklin, their knowledge of the case and what life is like in South Central.
Now, five years after his arrest, with the case tied up in pretrial hearings, Lonnie Franklin, who has pleaded not guilty, remains in jail, awaiting trial.
Tales of the Grim Sleeper continues a run of acclaimed documentaries for Broomfield, including Driving Me Crazy, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (nominated for a Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival), CINEMAX’s Kurt & Courtney and Biggie and Tupac. Together with Joan Churchill, Broomfield produced and directed Juvenile Liaison, Tattooed Tears, Soldier Girls (winner of BAFTA’s Flaherty Documentary Award, as well as the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 1982 Sundance Film Festival), Lily Tomlin (a Documentary Grand Jury Prize nominee at Sundance in 1987) and HBO’s Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (IDA Award nominee and European Film Award winner), among other films. Broomfield’s numerous accolades include a BAFTA Award, Prix Italia Award, DuPont-Columbia Award, Peabody Award and Hague Peace Prize. The Broomfield-directed Ghosts was nominated for the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize-Dramatic at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Tales of the Grim Sleeper is the first documentary collaboration between Broomfield and his son, cinematographer Barney Broomfield.
SHOOT: What drew you to the case of the Grim Sleeper?
Broomfield: I have spent a lot of time in Los Angeles one way or the other over the years. It’s an intriguing city, a difficult city to get to know. There’s so much of the city you never go into. In the past, I have gone out of my way to spend time in Compton and South Central, particularly when doing Biggie and Tupac.
I came across a series of stories that Christine Pelisek at LA Weekly wrote about the case. There was also a Newsweek piece. They were all fascinating, well written stories that dealt with the subject in an intelligent manner. That started me on the path to this documentary. I felt it was an interesting case in that this is such a racially divided city that has never recovered from the segregation of housing. It’s an apartheid like division that is still so much in effect on an economic as well as a geographic, physical level. In a way I felt this story went to the heart of some of the problems in inner city areas–not just in L.A.
SHOOT: What was (were) the biggest creative challenges(s) that Tales of the Grim Sleeper posed to you as a documentary filmmaker?
Broomfield: I come from the documentary filmmaking school where you don’t have the whole film pre-planned. The power of documentary comes from it being a precarious act. You go into it and get a lot of raw responses to your inquiries and tell your story from there. I think that this way is often a lot more accurate. It’s more interesting for an audience to watch something that is taking shape rather than planned, beautifully lit talking heads.
I tend to go into a project not knowing if I will gain access to the main characters, and in some cases not knowing who all the main characters are. That inherently is a creatively difficult situation. It’s easier to have a scripted version of the film. But I feel going with my approach is using the documentary film format as best as you can. You discover things and it takes you in directions you couldn’t have otherwise planned for or predicted.
SHOOT: Like the happy discovery of Pam Brooks who is such a big part of the documentary.
Broomfield: Yes, exactly. Pam was somebody who happened to wander in. She became a friend and helped us connect with the community, leading us to the right people. We knew going in that we needed to have a massive amount of involvement from the community in order to make this film.
SHOOT: Your documentary reports on the lack of media coverage for these serial killings. Members of the community point to mainstream media not caring about life in the inner city. What’s your take on the lack of coverage?
Broomfield: It’s remarkable to see murders go uncovered. I hate to use the term “racism” but you can’t help but think that. Black deaths don’t sell newspapers, I guess. No one wants to read about it. People aren’t interested. The city rid itself of any responsibility for what plagues inner cities–be it murder, incredibly high unemployment. You have police who seemingly don’t feel the responsibility to protect and serve that part of the city. We saw that in Ferguson (Missouri) in great detail but it’s not limited to Ferguson. Generally it’s not a priority to deal with inner city areas and to make sure that employment and education is on par with the rest of us.
There’s no responsibility taken for the amount of crack cocaine that originally went into the neighborhood years ago. The Oliver North, Nicaraguan, Iran Contra thing, funding the war through crack hasn’t been addressed. There’s never been any real responsibility taken by the federal government to eradicate a crack epidemic that’s still going on. Instead it’s treated as simply an individual crisis. But we have a community that’s been hit hard by crack cocaine being intentionally brought in to hook people. The community needs help to recover from what’s been done.
SHOOT: You set up an office in the neighborhood. That seemed to be a big plus as locals visited your office and began to share their experiences. Friends of Lonnie Franklin who first were guarded and suspicious of you had initially defended him and said they couldn’t believe he could commit such crimes. But as you built trust with the community, we had several of those same friends come to you and talk about Franklin’s dark side. What was your thinking behind setting up an office in the community.
Broomfield: Yes, I took an office in Leimert Park close to where we were shooting. Our feeling was that we should be close at hand, to have a place from where we could get to different parts of the neighborhood fairly quickly. It’s not like we were making appointments for interviews. We very much needed to be there at the moment, to have our feet on the ground.
Also there’s a lot of suspicion about outsiders. People were more comfortable coming to us rather than us dropping in on them. If you want to make a film that represents a place, you need to kind of live in it yourself, to be around so that you can have chance encounters at restaurants and other parts of the neighborhood. People feel you are making an effort, and that leads to you meeting more people because they feel you care and are trying to understand what’s going on.
SHOOT: Tales of the Grim Sleeper marked your first documentary collaboration with your son, cinematographer Barney Broomfield. Reflect on what that experience was like.
Broomfield: It was one of the pleasures of making the film really. He contributed a massive amount. The personality of the people you work with is so important, especially when you have a crew of two or three people. Barney had done a lot of filming in quite difficult situations before. He’s personable and has the ability to get people to open up and have fun which is key. He had fantastic relationships with people, particularly with Pam which made all the difference in the film. They laughed a lot together.
It wasn’t just a pleasure to work with him as his father. Obviously I’m very proud of him. But it was a pleasure also because of what he brought to the project. Humor is such a key thing. If someone doesn’t feel comfortable or seems withheld, people pick up on that and it has a bad effect on them. He had a good effect on the people we encountered, which positively impacted our film.
SHOOT: What’s next for you?
Broomfield: I’m working on another crime story in New York. I’m also doing an architectural series for the BBC–but it’s architecture in quite a different vein than what viewers are accustomed to. And I’m involved in a drama series with the BBC which is based on a novel.
SHOOT: What was the biggest revelation for you based on your experience making Tales of the Grim Sleeper?
Broomfield: Simply what wonderful people there are in South Central Los Angeles. We had fun being down there. It’s a complete crime that they’ve been so neglected and short changed over the years. They really deserve better.
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