Get Smart

Growing up in New England I was familiar with the name “Pamela Smart” before I ever had any idea of who she was or why she was famous. New England is like that with our monsters and victims, Charles Stuart or Pamela Smart or Lewis Lent or Lisa Ziegert. They're all names you'd hear growing up and you'd understand that there was something wrong or shocking or disturbing because of the way the grown ups reacted, the way they talked about it, but you weren't really able to suss it out for yourself. And, speaking only for myself, why would you want to? You're a kid and the news is boring.

It's been 25 years since the Pamela Smart case and 20 years since the Gus Van Sant film To Die For which was a film adaptation of the book by the same name which in itself was a fictionalization of the real life Smart case. Last year HBO Documentaries released a film entitled Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart which appears to be the first reasonable, objective film (or really, media production of any kind) to examine the realities of the case, from before, during and after the trial. There was also a made for TV movie in 1991, starring Helen Hunt, The Pamela Smart Story and you can try to watch it but it is really bad, even by early 90s television standards.

This is all relevant again because of the parole of Billy Flynn, who according to the trial, was the triggerman in the murder of Pamela Smart's husband Gregg. If you aren't familiar with the case, it's famous for a variety of reasons, not only the sordid and titillating details of a “teacher” (she wasn't) seducing a student and then inspiring him to murder her husband, but also because it was the first court case to be broadcast publicly from start to finish. It seems that people always want to take credit for being the one who created Reality TV before Reality TV was created (as someone does in Captivated), but the trial can be viewed through the lens of being a sort of birth in our culture of shock exploitation and media vampirism. Maybe not the first official instance of the media carnival and the cultural circus that erupts in its wake, but it may exist as the significant catalyst or pistol shot that kicked off the frenzy that we now know as the norm when it comes to trial by media, trial by public emotion, trial by anything except the truth.

As I watched Captivated I have to admit to being a little disappointed by how often To Die For seemed to be thrown under the bus for contributing to this hysterical, public condemnation of Pamela. Granted, the book on which the film is based was released in 1992 only one year after the trial and therefore could be looked at, to a certain degree, as being part of the initial wave of insanity that seemed to wash over the nation and the world via the television coverage. However the film was released in 1995 which I felt gives it enough breathing room from the actual, historical case as well as the fictionalization that followed.

Part of my discomfort with To Die For being lumped in with the shlocky “The Pamela Smart Story” is To Die For is a great film while “The Pamela Smart Story” is, well, see if you can make it through ten minutes of it on youtube. Although after having watched Captivated I can see that To Die For, despite being based on a very blatant fictionalization of the case could easily be a hindrance in getting anyone in authority to take another look at Pamela Smart's situation.

To Die For is an impressive film on a variety of levels. It boasts a screenplay by the legendary Buck Henry and a cast that has only become more impressive as the years have passed, featuring Joaquin Phoenix a full five years before Gladiator made him a household name and Casey Affleck two years before Good Will Hunting made him “Ben Affleck's brother”. (That's a joke about public perception, not actual talent, I love Casey Affleck as a performer and exist in the extreme minority of people who believe that he should've won Best Supporting Actor over Javier Bardem) Nicole Kidman, Dan Hedaya, Kurtwood Smith, Ilyana Douglas, Matt Dillon, Wayne Knight, George Segal and even David Cronenberg also feature to varying degrees but all bring monumentally impressive performances to the piece. Add to this that film features a score by Danny Elfman and you can easily see why To Die For seems a perfect fit for any cult canon.

Which of course all fails to mention the film itself which is presented as either a faux documentary or a mockumentary (I guess depending on how funny you find the film, which does have many moments that are genuinely hilarious. Nicole Kidman's Suzanne playing “All By Myself” on the boombox at Matt Dillon's Larry's funeral immediately comes to mind). The film does explore the media and our culture's fascination with fame and the cultural capital that comes with it, albeit through the scope of Suzanne and her sociopathic, vicious personal crusade. To Die For feels like a hybrid of John Waters, Todd Haynes and what people imagine Tim Burton movies to be like (versus the reality, which is disappointingly dull) but doesn't really feel like a Gus Van Sant movie too often. Sometimes it does, as in when the camera stays rooted on Joaquin's bare torso as he receives oral sex from Kidman. But often it feels like such a product of its time and such a product of the wit of Buck Henry that its hard to see Van Sant there at all, which I'll contend is actually a good thing. One of the things that makes Gus Van Sant such an impressive visual artist is his refusal to just make one movie or stay in one place artistically speaking.

The film is a challenging one to be sure, for it creates this world where the characters appear to be extremely one dimensional yet at the same time it also creates enough room for the audience to have sympathy for them as well. If To Die For could exist in a void, removed from the actual realities of the Pamela Smart case it would be a lot easier to sell it to you now. Hell, when I first came up with the idea to write about To Die For in connection to Billy Flynn's parole I was going to focus on what a great movie it is and why you should all go and see it (which it is and you should). But while looking up information on the case after I had finished watching it but before I had started writing I discovered the Captivated documentary from last year, which now having viewed makes praising the sexy, beautiful, challenging, darkness and American cultural criticisms of To Die For a little harder to do in good faith or clear conscious.

Captivated hopefully will do for Pamela Smart what Paradise Lost did for the West Memphis 3 and get a conversation going that will lead to something be done to change her current situation. I read an interview on Salon before watching it, with the director who didn't do a great job of selling the film, but also the interviewer did a terrible job of asking anything truly relevant or interesting as well so maybe the whole thing should just be considered a wash and the film should speak for itself.

The documentary is a truly impressive piece of television, that despite the director's stated intent to not make the film about whether or not Pamela Smart is innocent, but to focus on the trial and the media portrayal of her, does raise all kinds of questions about her guilt or innocence. It definitely creates a narrative that, at the very least, is full of reasonable doubt. You can't watch Captivated and come away from it thinking that anything resembling justice had actually been done.

Captivated challenges the official story, that of Pamela masterminding teenage hoodlums, driven wild by her sexual voraciousness, to murder her husband. Through interviews, TV footage and smart, engaging commentary with key players in the trial the cut and dry, black and white world that media relied on for the non-stop cash parade that was The Pamela Smart Trial becomes a much more muddied world of grays. While the film seems to hesitate in coming right out and finger pointing at someone else to take the blame (much in the same way Paradise Lost did) it does demonstrate how a hysterical media created a hysterical public that had more interest in blood and vengeance than anything resembling truth or justice.

I'll be fully honest that I found the new portrait of Pamela Smart that emerges when the credits roll to still be one that is hard to approach, mired in difficult truths as it is. For example, if the case had been with a man in the role of the adult and a woman in the role of the teenage killer where would the sympathies of the public lie? Where would the courts look for their demon? The media for their easy to condemn scapegoat? Ask Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher, who unlike Billy Flynn and Pamela Smart who were separated in age by about 5 or 6 years (which obviously doesn't excuse sex with a minor, but allow me this statement of fact to flesh out the point) but were separated by a full 18 years (Joe being 34 and Amy being 16 at the time of their affair). Joey Buttafuoco serves four months for statutory rape while Amy Fisher served 6 years for the attempted murder of Joey's wife. Amy and Pamela, “The Long Island Lolita” and “The Ice Queen”. The women serve the time, the men get off easy.

Before I saw Captivated I wanted to write a different piece. I wanted to write about how it was appalling that people could seriously look at a case where an adult took advantage of what would legally be considered a child, a student, someone who wasn't old enough to make real, legal decisions for themselves. I couldn't believe that no one seemed to be having the conversation about whether or not this initial affair that Pamela had wasn't textbook statutory rape. I also thought that if the gender roles were reversed, well obviously people would want the man to hang and the young person to be exonerated. After viewing Captivated I can't endorse those kinds of ideas anymore and I definitely can't gleefully revel in some misguided sense that any justice was done for Gregg Smart or that Billy Flynn getting paroled is any kind of a good thing for anyone.

Joyce Maynard (the author the book, To Die For) says in the film, “The archetype of the beautiful woman brought down is a very powerful one.” That is a wonderful thought for exploring the world of fiction and character creation but a particularly dangerous one when it is applied to the real world with real world consequences.