“West Memphis 3,” Subject of ‘Paradise Lost’ Documentaries, Freed Today [UPDATED]
Amidst the popularity of look-at-me! documentaries by the likes of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, it can be easy to forget that, at their best, nonfiction films can bring about real change in the world. We're thinking about something like "The Thin Blue Line," the Errol Morris film that helped get a wrongly convicted man, Randall Adams, out of prison by exposing the weakness of the case against him. Today, Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin may be freed from prison after 17 years, and if it happens a lot of credit has to go to directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky and their series of "Paradise Lost" documentaries about them. (Update: The three men were indeed released today.)
If you're not familiar with the case, the three men were convicted in 1994 for killing three 8-year-olds in West Memphis, Arkansas. All of them 18 at the time of the crime, Echols was given the death sentence, while Baldwin and Misskelley had to serve life sentences. Berlinger and Sinofsky were hired by HBO in the mid-'90s in the wake of their acclaimed documentary "Brother's Keeper" to document the case, but once they started filming they began to suspect that the teens hadn't committed the crimes. In 1996, they released "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills," which forcefully argued that the three had been convicted mostly because they liked heavy metal and were presumed to be devil worshipers by their conservative, God-fearing community. "Paradise Lost" attracted the attention of everyone from Johnny Depp to Tom Waits to Eddie Vedder to the plight of the three teens and helped bring to light what seemed like a gross injustice. Meanwhile, the filmmakers produced a sequel four years later, and next month they were going to debut "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" at the Toronto Film Festival.
Well, it turns out that they may need to change the ending for their latest film. Today, the so-called "West Memphis 3" will be attending a hearing where they'll be allowed to change their pleas for the crime:
A source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a gag order in the case told the AP the tentative deal includes a legal maneuver that would let the men maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors likely have enough evidence to convict them.
Essentially, the West Memphis 3 will plead no-contest and be freed on a technicality that allows the prosecution to maintain their earlier guilty verdict. And the "Paradise Lost" filmmakers will be there this morning to shoot the decision, which gives them very little time to add this new, hopefully happy ending to their movie. But Berlinger and Sinofsky don't seem to mind. "We always lamented the fact that we had to keep making sequels to this horrifying real life story," Berlinger told Deadline yesterday. "It's the West Memphis 3, and so stopping at three films seems right. We have just enough time to include what happens in the ending of the film, and it's the most incredible feeling knowing that your work had an impact."
The first two "Paradise Lost" movies were gripping and sobering, but if they actually help free the West Memphis 3 they'll be far more important than simply as movies. They'll have helped right a terrible wrong. It's been a long time coming.
As 'West Memphis 3' Eye Freedom Friday, Toronto-Bound Docu To Change Ending [Deadline]
