Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Amanda Knox (2016)

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 10-02-2016, 09:46 AM:

A documentary: the judicial and media circus that occurs after a British exchange student is murdered in Italy. At the IFC Center, New York City, in limited release, and on Netflix.

*****

Most of you are no doubt familiar with this case, but here’s a brief refresher: on the evening of November 1, 2007, a young British student named Meredith Kercher was murdered in her apartment in Perugia, Italy by a local prowler named Rudy Guede whom Kercher was acquainted with and who had a lengthy criminal record. But one of Kercher’s roommates was a promiscuous twenty-year old American named Amanda Knox, who was working as a local barmaid and who referred to herself as “Foxy Knoxy” on MySpace. This information came into the hands of Nick Pisa, a British tabloid journalist who, smelling a salacious headline implicated Knox and her new boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in the case, painting it as a sex-refusal murder. Although the evidence against them was slight, the Italian court, both irritated and pressured by the international media attention, brought Knox and Sollecito to trial and found them guilty, then not guilty on appeal, then guilty again. They were ultimately acquitted by the Italian Supreme Court in March of 2015.

No one involved in the case did themselves any favors by appearing in this well-made documentary, which features on-camera interviews with those involved. Knox comes off as somewhat vulgar and self-absorbed, while the pompous Italian prosecutor seems to have had them arrested just on the vaguest of suspicions, and then had to prove his case based on a clumsy forensic investigation and clearly contaminated DNA evidence. Sollecito comes through with his dignity intact, but there is a true villain in the film: the British journalist Pisa, who has no problem admitting that he was after a byline and who crucified Knox in the most disgusting light possible to drum up tabloid headlines, thereby turning world against her and insuring the judicial circus that ensued. Watching the film you get the impression that without all the media frenzy, the case would have resulted in an acquittal on its first trial. The Italian polizia don't fare much better, ruining the crime scene and fouling the DNA samples on the presumed murder weapon.

There are still some strange things about this case, and both Knox and Guede have changed their story about that night multiple times, but the film ultimately comes down on her side and it is pretty convincing. It’s a very good look at the case, for those who followed it.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-02-2016, 02:31 PM:

Thanks - I'm going to try to catch this. I worked at the university at which Kercher was a student at the time of her murder, and so obviously I remember the case very well. Your write-up of the documentary squares pretty much with my impressions of the case at the time, namely:

1 - There is no doubt in my mind, from everything I read and heard, that Guede was responsible, and that no-one else was substantively involved.

2 - None of the mainstream media wanted to go there, for fear of accusations of racism.

3 - Knox was a regular customer (for drugs) of Guede, which made her an easy target for Italian prosecutors.

4 - Knox's online presence and somewhat salacious personal life made her an easy target for the popular press, who portrayed her as a femme fatale.

5 - Knox's Italian boyfriend appeared to have significant mental health issues, too, which didn't help things.

6 - Knox also fell victim to Italian prosecutors wanting to make a name for themselves.

7 - The contrast of the "Foxy Knoxy" persona with Kercher's conservative upbringing helped both the popular press and the Italian prosecutors.

The end result is that no-one, apart from the deceased, came out of this with much to their credit.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 10-02-2016, 11:13 PM:

Is there a basis for calling her promiscuous? I have a general familiarity with the case but did not follow it that closely. (I don't want to miss out on anything juicy!)

I do recall her saying in an interview that "Foxy Knoxy" was a nickname she had since she was a child.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 10-03-2016, 05:56 AM:

During the film Knox claims that she was told that she was HIV positive by the police, who then urged her to make a list of everyone she had slept with, ultimately a ruse to use her sexuality against her. Let's say that for someone who was just twenty at the time, there were what I thought was quite a few (seven). Perhaps my use of the term "promiscuous" stems from my "Leave It To Beaver" era sensibilities, maybe the word no longer has any meaning, and maybe by contemporary standards this makes her a normal gal, but overall it seems pretty clear that it didn't take much effort with her.