With the long-awaited new season of “Twin Peaks” nearly upon us, now seems a particularly good moment to revisit one of the most David Lynchian crimes of all time: the 1996 murder of six-year-old child beauty pageant contestant JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado. The still-unsolved killing is the subject of Kitty Green’s fascinating new “Casting JonBenet,” which was a highlight of the recently ended Berlin Film Festival.
Prettily populated with little girls in tinsel, tap shoes and tutus alongside ambitious parents of dubious believability; peppered with the possibility of pedophilia and further spiced with a generous serving of lurid details, the JonBenet Ramsey killing is the quintessential American made-for-TV crime story.
In fact, a number of made-for-TV movies have been made about the case, most notably the 2000 television movie "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenet and the City of Boulder," which starred heavyweights Kris Kristofferson, Marg Helgenberger, John Heard and Jane Powell, and directed by Lawrence Schiller. That same year saw a three-part mini-series, "JonBenet: An American Murder Mystery" directed by Rex Short. More recently, there was the 2016 Lifetime movie "Who Killed JonBenet?" directed by Jason Lapeyre.
Enter Kitty Green, an Australian filmmaker whose free-form documentary skillfully avoids a gossipy rehashing of this tabloid-worthy case. With a novel and creative approach, she invites the viewer behind the scenes to observe the casting of a feature film about the murder. Assisted by directors Annie Hamilton and Brian McCulley, Green crowd sources the local Boulder community for their reactions to the infamous crime. These interviews form the backbone of this artfully edited film, which mixes in the “casting” sessions with cinematic reenactments of the crime and ensuing investigation.
Framing “Casting JonBenet” is the audition process itself, an offbeat depiction of community theater that plays out like a true crime counterpart of Christopher Guest’s 1996 mockumentary, “Waiting for Guffman.” We get to know dozens of hopefuls vying for the chance to play the Ramsey family members -- John, Patsy, Burke and JonBenet herself. The actors speak directly to the camera, sounding off about the intersection of the celebrated case and their own lives. The adult actors are not only all acutely aware of the murder and investigation; many also have deeply emotional reactions to the crime, not to mention their own theories about the murder. Often raw and intimate, these interviews form the beating heart of the film itself.
“Casting JonBenet” ushers its audience on a journey in search of answers. At first, some of the actors come across as shallow, talentless and prurient. Thanks to director Green’s respectful guidance, however, they are revealed to be mostly sincere and thoughtful small-town Americans – Joe and Joan Plumber, if you will -- living in the shadow of a local trauma. Some surprise us with their dramatic acumen and touch us by their ability to probe the heart of this particular darkness.
“Casting JonBenet” toggles back and forth between these interviews, auditions and re-enactments, building to a crescendo in which the camera pans across a large set of the Ramsey house filled with innumerable actors portraying the grieving, quarreling and frantic parents on the night of JonBenet’s murder.
Many well-worn details of the case emerge: charges that the crime scene was contaminated; the rumor of a local child porn ring; JonBenet’s bedwetting; the bizarre three-page ransom note and discovery of JonBenet covered by a blanket – a detail that aficionados of Law and Order will tell you invariably indicates a female murderer.
Whether Patsy had a hand in her daughter’s killing or not, her role in the sexualization of her little girl is beyond question. A memorable sequence in the film shows make-up artists transforming tiny girls into JonBenet with cosmetic sleight of hand and the help of poufy blond wigs. The girls become garish and clown-like. Our collective heart sinks. Here begins the murder.
Green grants us a backstage pass to hang out alongside the make-up, costume and the stage crew, observing her work at close range while she examines the many facets of this all-American crime. What pathology was lurking within the Ramsay family? We emerge with more questions than answers and the uneasy feeling of a deep-seated familial sickness.
Still, the film is not without levity or outright wackiness. In a particularly anarchic sequence, young boys avidly smash watermelons with mallet while wearing protective eye gear, in order to set to rest the issue of whether a boy the age of JonBenet’s brother Burke could cause the sort of skull fracture that the girl’s autopsy revealed. A bearish man auditioning for the role of a local cop gives the filmmakers a demonstration of the S&M techniques he teaches in his sex workshops. And at times, the actors auditioning are so downright bad that it produces laughter from the audience.
Even so, the film is never mean. Green maintains a sense of dignity for her subjects even as she gets them to reveal painful details of their lives: illness and death of family members or horrific childhood abuse. One woman in particular wins the Trifecta of Terrible Afflictions with a slew of misfortunes revealed over the course of the film.
With its careful composition and artful manipulation of narrative, “Casting JonBenet” often looks and feels like a feature film. Cinematographer Michael Latham brings a vivid warmth to the film, allowing viewers to focus and glimpse beneath the surface of the film’s subjects. The result is a reflection, a meditation, social commentary and, yes, entertainment where sleuthing becomes a kind of communal group therapy.
More than two decades after the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, the case continues to fascinate. What the movie ultimately offers is post-modern midrash on the grizzly murder of an innocent girl who was robbed of her childhood before she was robbed of her life.