Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer

Nick Broomfield, the director of 'Kurt and Courtney', offers another interesting insight to a notorious subject of a different kind. Aileen Wuornos, dubbed America's first female serial killer and a woman who killed seven men, is the topic of Broomfield's investigation. He draws attention to the circumstances surrounding the media and Hollywood deals and the characteristics of Wuornos's lawyer and a Christian woman (who adopts Aileen and becomes her spiritual mother) and exposes their agenda. Rather than give insight to the crimes itself, Broomfield reveals the sensationalism of the event, and the people involved with Aileen. This is hardly a brilliant documentary but essential viewing as we see Broomfield struggle to get his interview with Aileen where the compelling factor revolves around the circumstances of the process and people involved itself!

***1/2 out of *****!

Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992) was the first film that Nick Broomfield made about America's "first female serial killer". We follow Nick Broomfield around the sleazy side of Florida (and of American culture)as he tries to learn more about Aileen Wuornos. We also learn about how everyone is out to get a piece of her fame and ride it until it's out of gas. Mr. Broomfield does everything he can to try and get an interview as well with the notorious serial killer. Will Nick Broomfield get his interview? Are people really this greedy and shallow? What drove Ms. Wuornos and why to Christian groups want her to die in IL' Sparky? Check it out!!

Not as compelling as the second film but it's still interesting. I would strongly recommend this film for documentary fans or those who enjoy Nick Broomfield's work.

The grotesque and sinister Steven Glazer leads Nick Broomfield into a frightening tabloid current affair world in which serial killers have agents, The police frame suspects in order to get movie deals, I don't wnt to spoil to much of the disturbing thins that occur but Steven Glazer has some odd advice to give to his client.

Serial killer Aileen Wuornos came to my attention when Charlize Theron played her in Patty Jenkins's "Monster". It turned out that Wuornos had been famous for over a decade before then. Nick Broomfield's "Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer" focuses on Wuornos's arrest and prosecution.

The topics noted by the documentary are that Wuornos had a dismal childhood (resulting in her proclivity towards violence); and that during the trial, a number of people tried to enrich themselves from the publicity. Basically, there were no good guys; the documentary doesn't heroify Wuornos, but also shows what opportunists everyone else was.

Broomfield made a second documentary about Aileen Wuornos, but I haven't seen that one, only this one and "Monster" (it turns out that there was also a 1992 movie about Wuornos starring Jean Smart). The point is that Wuornos is a clear example of how a harsh upbringing can turn someone into a sadist - that is, a screwed-up society breeds screwed-up people* - and how people will then want to profit from it. Definitely worth seeing.

*That was also one of the points made in "A Clockwork Orange".

"Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer" is a disturbing documentary in which no one comes out in a positive light: not the police, not the lawyers, not the judges, not the media, certainly not Aileen Wuornos and not even the filmmakers.

This documentary by Nick Broomfield is unfocused, and the filmmaker and his small crew are often part of the saga. It paints a rather grim picture, where police are more concerned about possible movie deals than arresting the right person (although they did have the right person, almost by accident), where lawyers are slime buckets even when masquerading as laid back rejects from the '60s and '70s "flower power" era, and where people who claim to be spiritual and doing "God's work" come out looking no less mercenary or self-serving than anyone else (well, except maybe the killer and the sleazy lawyer).

Filmmaker Broomfield doesn't give us nearly as many facts as you might expect - and in this case, even wish for - in a documentary of this type. Much of the film consists of him traipsing around with his small film crew, trying to convince somebody to talk to him. He seems often to miss the point, and doesn't ask the most relevant or probing questions. I never could decide, while watching this film, how much of that was on purpose, for effect, and how much was just him not doing a very good job. It does add to the overall dark impression in the film, that few people really know the truth, know what's going on, and that fewer still care...

Interesting in places, disturbing in others, downright scary if you come out of this believing this is how the criminal justice system works (or not) in this country, Broomfield's film is certainly thought provoking, if somewhat confused and lacking focus.