CelluloidChild
04-26-13, 10:21 AM
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5d/The_Central_Park_Five_poster.jpg/220px-The_Central_Park_Five_poster.jpg
The Central Park Five is a powerful and important documentary directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon. Ken Burns is one of the best American documentary filmmakers, known for his incredibly well-researched films, including his series on the histories of jazz, baseball and the Civil War.
The Central Park jogger case is one of the most notorious and racially divisive single incidents in the history of New York City, and perhaps the USA as a whole. In 1989 Trisha Meilli, a 28-year old Wall Street banker, was brutally assaulted and raped in the northern part of Central Park, and five teenagers - four African-Americans and one Latino, including a 14 year old, three 15 year olds and one 16 year old - were convicted and sent to prison. They served sentences from between seven to thirteen years.
The Central Park Five begins with the 2002 confession by Matias Reyes, a serial rapist, and then goes back to the event of the 1989 crime and traces the process by which NYPD detectives coerced false confessions out of each of the teenagers. It also reviews the trials, during which New York City prosecutors, despite no evidence linking the boys to the crime except their coerced confessions, pushed through the convictions.
Interviews in the documentary include the five boys, now men in their late thirties, their parents, mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins, one of the trial jurors, a lawyer for one of the boys, two journalists who covered the case, a historian and a sociologist. None of the detectives or prosecutors involved in the case agreed to be interviewed.
The film also focuses on the massive media attention that made the case an ongoing national and even international news story. In an already racially charged and divided New York, the boys were vilified in the press in much the same way as many black men in US history who have been accused of assaulting white women - cases which in the more distant past led to many lynchings. In the Central Park case, lots of people - including Donald Trump - called for the death penalty to be imposed on the teenagers, despite their young age, let alone the lack of hard evidence.
The confession by Reyes eventually led to the dismissal of the convictions of the Central Park Five. But as an historian in the film says, to this day the furor surrounding the trial and convictions drowns out the good news of the convictions being overturned.
The New York Police Department and justice system still denies any wrongdoing in the case, and a 250 million dollar civil suit filed in 2003 by the five men is still pending. The release this month of The Central Park Five has stirred up fresh controversy around the case, and lawyers for New York City unsuccessfully tried to obtain and use outtakes from the film's interviews in the city's defense.
The Central Park Five is like other films such as West of Memphis and The Thin Blue Line that document the way in which people are falsely accused and convicted and even put on death row. At the same time, the detectives and prosecutors who concoct false evidence and ignore real evidence in these high-profile cases make names and careers for themselves.
In addition to everything else, the film serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of Miranda rights - which have recently come under attack in the wake of the Boston bombings. Without a reminder of the right to remain silent and have a lawyer present, anybody brought in for questioning can easily and unwittingly indict themselves.
9/10
The Central Park Five is a powerful and important documentary directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon. Ken Burns is one of the best American documentary filmmakers, known for his incredibly well-researched films, including his series on the histories of jazz, baseball and the Civil War.
The Central Park jogger case is one of the most notorious and racially divisive single incidents in the history of New York City, and perhaps the USA as a whole. In 1989 Trisha Meilli, a 28-year old Wall Street banker, was brutally assaulted and raped in the northern part of Central Park, and five teenagers - four African-Americans and one Latino, including a 14 year old, three 15 year olds and one 16 year old - were convicted and sent to prison. They served sentences from between seven to thirteen years.
The Central Park Five begins with the 2002 confession by Matias Reyes, a serial rapist, and then goes back to the event of the 1989 crime and traces the process by which NYPD detectives coerced false confessions out of each of the teenagers. It also reviews the trials, during which New York City prosecutors, despite no evidence linking the boys to the crime except their coerced confessions, pushed through the convictions.
Interviews in the documentary include the five boys, now men in their late thirties, their parents, mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins, one of the trial jurors, a lawyer for one of the boys, two journalists who covered the case, a historian and a sociologist. None of the detectives or prosecutors involved in the case agreed to be interviewed.
The film also focuses on the massive media attention that made the case an ongoing national and even international news story. In an already racially charged and divided New York, the boys were vilified in the press in much the same way as many black men in US history who have been accused of assaulting white women - cases which in the more distant past led to many lynchings. In the Central Park case, lots of people - including Donald Trump - called for the death penalty to be imposed on the teenagers, despite their young age, let alone the lack of hard evidence.
The confession by Reyes eventually led to the dismissal of the convictions of the Central Park Five. But as an historian in the film says, to this day the furor surrounding the trial and convictions drowns out the good news of the convictions being overturned.
The New York Police Department and justice system still denies any wrongdoing in the case, and a 250 million dollar civil suit filed in 2003 by the five men is still pending. The release this month of The Central Park Five has stirred up fresh controversy around the case, and lawyers for New York City unsuccessfully tried to obtain and use outtakes from the film's interviews in the city's defense.
The Central Park Five is like other films such as West of Memphis and The Thin Blue Line that document the way in which people are falsely accused and convicted and even put on death row. At the same time, the detectives and prosecutors who concoct false evidence and ignore real evidence in these high-profile cases make names and careers for themselves.
In addition to everything else, the film serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of Miranda rights - which have recently come under attack in the wake of the Boston bombings. Without a reminder of the right to remain silent and have a lawyer present, anybody brought in for questioning can easily and unwittingly indict themselves.
9/10