ESPN 30 for 30 June 17th, 1994 (2010)
Directed by Brett Morgan
Written by Documentary
Starring O.J Simpson, Mark Messier, Marv Albert, Bob Costas, Chris Berman
Release Date June 16th, 2010
Published June 17th, 2010
ESPN Films has turned out remarkable documentaries under the banner 30 for 30. The death of Len Bias, the story of the USFL and the unique life of running back Ricky Williams are just some of the subjects that some of the finest documentary filmmakers working today have tackled with astonishing success.
The latest filmmaker to tackle a sports subject in documentary form is The Kid Stays in the Picture director Brett Morgen. His esoteric subject is one of the more remarkable days in sports and American cultural history, ..June 17th 1994... The date will always be remembered for O.J Simpson's bizarre slow speed chase but this strange worldwide theater encompassed more than just that famed white bronco.
On ..June 17th 1994.. the New York Rangers celebrated an amazing Stanley Cup Victory with a parade in New York's famed canyon of heroes. Ticker tape was thrown and thousands of New York fans gathered to cheer for their hockey heroes as they were feted by New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani.
That same morning Arnold Palmer teed off for the final time at the US Open after 41 years. In Chicago Oprah and President Bill Clinton welcomed to the world to the United States for the opening games of the World Cup. That night the scene was to shift back to New York where the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets played game 5 of the NBA Championship series.
I say that it was supposed to shift because that evening as the Knicks and Rockets tipped off in Madson Square Garden the world's attention was aimed at the 5 Freeway in Los Angeles as O.J Simpson, with a gun to his head and his friend Al A.C Cowlings at the wheel held police at bay.
Brett Morgen brings these stories together in a non-traditional documentary fashion, minus talking head interviews and canned narration. Instead, Morgen uses news footage from that day and archive footage of the man O.J Simpson was to craft the story of this remarkable day in a way that brings it stunningly back from the depths of our collective memories.
Among the most striking memories for me was Police Commander David Gascon's announcement that the Los Angeles Police Department was actively searching for O.J Simpson. More forceful and better remembered are the words of former L.A County District Attorney Gil Garcetti's famed statement, nevertheless powerful today, "Mr. Simpson is a fugitive from justice right now."
These scenes were burned into our memories. Director Morgen returns to these scenes the context of that day and the emotion that so many felt in seeing a man who had been a positive presence in so many lives from sports to commercials to film and TV. O.J Simpson was not a huge star but certainly the most well known ever to be accused of murder. Morgen's style, no modern interviews or narrator, takes us back to that day and the confusion and horror of those stunning moments come rushing back.
With crisp editing and tremendous orchestral scoring Brett Morgen and his editing team cut gracefully between the stories that developed that day around the country and the ways those stories that on any other day could lead the news headlines, were effectively rendered meaningless by a slow moving white bronco carrying a football legend to his seeming doom.
The story of ..June 17th 1994.. is, as director Morgen says in an interstitial interview, a turning point in our culture. Reality TV and our celebrity obsessed culture was born on this date. The chase, capture and eventual trial of O.J Simpson began a media and cultural obsession with the private lives of public figures as we salivated over finding the next scandal, the next murder, the next blood in the cultural waters.
Morgen cleverly makes my last point with a pair of moments that most might not have taken note of. During a Royals-Mariners baseball game that day an announcer callously jokes "Did you hear O.J Simpson is at the US Open? He already has 2 under." Later that night as Knicks coach Pat Riley was taking questions about his teams Game 5 win another diseased member of the media asked a perplexed and appalled Riley if O.J would have gotten away if he had not 'cut to the left.'
Our cultural civility has long been a myth, ruptured, in my opinion, in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate when cynicism born of the Kennedy, Kennedy and King assassinations finally boiled over into outright hostility and festered into the 80's with Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, Jimmy Swaggart and others.
This festering finally found full disturbing bloom when it melded with the birth of modern media in the O.J Simpson murders. A culture tortured by cynicism met a perfect storm of media and technology and a hellmouth of ugliness and obsession was born, it's spawn being the resurgence of the tabloid, TMZ.com, Perez Hilton and the ability for the average American to engulf themselves in the ugliness with reality television.
It is strangely poetic and darkly humorous that standing amid the media storm ..June 17th 1994.. was a little known Los Angeles lawyer named Robert Kardashian. Preening for the camera with his perfectly coiffed pompadour and carrying what was believed to be O.J Simpson's suicide note, Kardashian relished the glare of the media on that day and in the ensuing trial days in the same way his daughters Kourtney, Khloe et al seek the glare of the modern spotlight.
The strange, dark, ironic humor doesn't end there as director Brett Morgen caps the doc with the wonderful Talking Heads song "Heaven." The chorus repeated by David Byrne as O.J finishes the day in police custody and Pat Riley faces down that reporter and Rangers fans begin to sober up and Arnold Palmer finally gets a moment to rest, says "Heaven, heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens."
Something happened that day and we've never been the same. Brett Morgen and ESPN Films have stunningly recreated a cultural landmark and in doing so have created one of the most fascinating documentaries of the year.
