A compelling companion piece to the documentary – newsdubai
In December 2001, author Michael Petersen called 9-1-1 to tell them he had found his wife Kathleen lying at the bottom of the stairs in their home in Durham; in the minutes immediately following his call to paramedics, Kathleen died, but local authorities did not fully believe Peterson’s story that his wife’s death was the result of a tragic accident, a simple slip and fall that was not caused by anything malicious or deliberate. Police charged Peterson with murdering Kathleen, and the subsequent indictment – as well as the lengthy trial – became the fodder for a media circus, and Peterson’s case was also the subject of an in-depth documentary series entitled The staircaseby filmmaker and author Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, which traced Peterson’s initial trial and conviction, as well as the retrial that followed alleged evidence based on the state’s platelet analysis was found to be misleading. Peterson eventually filed an Alford plea (in which he asserted his innocence, even while acknowledging that the evidence was sufficient to convict) and was sentenced to a serving time, culminating in his release from prison in 2017.
The documentary version of The staircase, consisting of 13 episodes (two of which were added later), extends over a long period – over 15 years – and seeks with its conclusion not to give a definitive answer. The upcoming HBO Max drama of the same name, which comes from creators Anthony Fields (The devil all the time) and Maggie Cohn, also refrains from proclaiming any final verdict on this case, which is more strange than fiction. In this particular case, however, it turns out to be almost reassuring not to have any easy answers, where the series allows for speculation (and gives weight to all potential theories about what could have happened – yes, even the owl theory), but never gives up a firm verdict in one way or another. Actually, The staircase expands its scale to be about much more than what happened that fateful night in December – and rather than revel in the inexplicable, focuses more on what happened next, as well as the lives and relationships that were irrevocably destroyed after having come under such high control.
For all its careful recreation and staging, what does The staircase the most compelling version of itself lies in its performance. Colin Firth, stepping into Peterson’s shoes, all the way down to the tube clenched between his teeth, assumes a significantly different, more self-assessing role than we have seen from him in recent memory. Through flashback scenes dedicated to deepening the author’s background story, there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that Peterson is a wandering dichotomy and a fascinating one – a man who preaches fidelity and loyalty to his wife, even while he was entertaining (and sometimes acting on) intimate affairs with other men; an aspiring local politician who wants to shed light on corruption but who has lied about his own former military record and the praise he received. The time spent in the past does the work to give the viewer a sense of doubt, but is there enough of it to be considered reasonable? If Peterson was willing to tell a lie about receiving a purple heart, what else has he been lying about?
With Kathleen’s side of the story transferred to archive footage and family films in the 2004s Stairsit is Toni Collette who has almost as much of the heavy lifting to do besides his co-star in performing a performance of a person whose voice was already muted when the original documentary series began filming. According to Petersons’ neighbors and those who knew the couple well, their marriage was rock solid, and whether Kathleen was actually aware of her husband’s pursuits outside of their relationship is one of the many unknown things that the HBO Max series does not put a definitive point, but Collette’s presence on screen adds to a complexity that the documentary did not have a chance to explore, even though that means the show takes some creative liberties in reproducing certain flashbacks. She is not a two-dimensional carving or equivalent of a narrative lamp, a person who becomes a dehumanized avatar for justice and the American criminal system; through the scenes we get with Collette and Firth, as well as with the actors who make up their large, mixed family, there is evidence that their home was happy regardless of the various problems, both financial and emotional, that often arose.
The rest of Peterson’s household is made up of the younger stars who play the kids – Patrick Schwarzenegger and Danish DeHaan appears as Todd and Clayton, Michael’s sons from a previous marriage, while Sophie Turner and Odessa Young plays Margaret and Martha Ratliff, whom the Peterson Patriarch adopted after the death of their biological mother. Where the documentary did not attempt (or perhaps was not allowed to) explore the family’s inner workings in its footage, Stairs dives much more significantly into the children’s inner lives both inside and outside the Peterson home, from Clayton’s previously recurring legal problems to Margaret’s struggle with her characters. As siblings begin to break up after their father has been arrested, Kathleen’s bio-daughter Caitlin (Olivia DeJonge) chooses to join his mother’s family across the hall at trial, a quarrel with Kathleen’s sister Candace (Rosemarie DeWitt) – and it is a furrow leading to what could be an invincible rift between the once united household.
As the case against Peterson begins to merge, several more recognizable faces from the original trial begin to take center stage in the story. As Peterson’s defense attorney David Rudolf, Michael Stuhlbarg is not only flawless casting from a purely equality point of view, but he brings the necessary gravitas that the real Rudolf so often possessed in the documentary footage – although it is the same austerity that begins to fray in the seams, the longer the trial lasts without firmness. solution. At the time, the prosecution (led by a nice scene-chewing, strong eye shadow Parker Posey as ADA Freda Black) reveals the fact that Margaret and Martha Ratliff’s biological mother was also discovered dead, by Peterson no less, back in 1985, Stuhlbargs Rudolf has reached his maximum indignation point and the cherry on top is a pitch-perfect line reading of: “You found another woman at the bottom of the stairs ?! ”
The staircase ultimately does something exciting in that it makes the film adaptation of the documentary a focal point for its story (Lestrade acts as one of the new show’s producers), and for those already familiar with the 2004 series, there are undeniable references to it laden throughout – including directors Campos and Leigh Janiak movie sequences that are practically a shot-by-shot re-creation of what is shown there. In the documentary, Lestrade was a background figure, the unseen perspective, and it was through his lens that The staircase later became known to the rest of the world; in the new series he is a visible character in the narrative, played by Vincent Vermignonwho often encounters his producer (Frank Feys) over how to portray Peterson’s story, as well as whether Peterson himself has committed the crime he has been accused of.
Watching this show not only makes it necessary to revisit the documentary; it requires a tandem display in which each successfully complements the other in its existence. While other series of genuine crime of recent recollection have aimed to take a decisive side in proclaiming the guilt or innocence of its subject, The staircase chooses to let these debates unfold through his characters, from family members both close and apart from Peterson through the trial to the documentary filmmaker with unlimited access to his life – and at the end of each conversation, the participants are no closer to a resolution than when it began. In this new version of The staircase, the fictional Lestrade repeats over and over again that he wants to use his documentaries to bring awareness to the justice system regardless of the verdict handed down or what his own instincts might reach for. Even as close as the documentary came in its search for real answers, The staircase does not provide much clarity beyond that, without some obvious answer amidst a legion of unfathomable mysteries that may never be unraveled. There is no successful questioning of the truth, only the circumstances surrounding the truth itself – but that does not mean that it is less convincing in the company.
Evaluation: ONE
The staircase premieres its first three episodes on HBO Max on May 5, with new episodes airing every subsequent Thursday until the finale.
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