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Prachtige/ontroerende documentaire/film! Liefdevol gemaakt.
The Laramie Project (The Matthew Shepard Story) USA 2002 * 95 minutes
Directed by: Moisés Kaufman
Moisés Kaufman and members of New York's Tectonic Theater Project went to Laramie, Wyoming after the murder of Matthew Shepard. This is a film version of the play they wrote based on more than 200 interviews they conducted in Laramie. It follows and in some cases re-enacts the chronology of Shepherd's visit to a local bar, his kidnap and beating, the discovery of him tied to a fence, the vigil at the hospital, his death and funeral, and the trial of his killers. It mixes real news reports with actors portraying friends, family, cops, killers, and other Laramie residents in their own words. It concludes with a Laramie staging of "Angels in America" a year after Shephard's death.
This well-made, unique film took a different approach to Matthew Sheppard's brutal murder in Laramie, Wyoming. Originally, a group of playwrights who wanted to tell the story on stage went to Laramie and interviewed a lot of the residents to hear what they had to say about the murder and what followed. The interviews were recorded on audio-tape -- they weren't making a documentary and didn't have a huge budget.
Eventually, they produced a stage play where actors presented vignettes of real townspeople, giving the audience their words. Matthew Sheppard does not appear in the work, except marginally. His murder is a sort of "given" and the play has to do with the effect it had on the town.
I haven't seen the stage play and I gather the HBO movie version is somewhat different -- we are treated to the same vignettes, a re-enactment of the comments made by a rather large number of people who were affected by the murder -- some who knew Matt Sheppard, some who treated him in the hospital between the assault and his death, and others. In this version, we're also shown the playwrights conducting the interviews and interacting with each other.
It's a remarkably even-handed treatment. Almost everyone is outraged at the murder. There are those who speculate that Matt Sheppard might have borne some responsibility for his fate, because he was gay -- people who think that murder is somehow understandable because just saying "no thank you" is not enough. Of course, there is no evidence that Matt Sheppard ever propositioned or inappropriately touched his murderers and quite a bit of evidence that they "pegged" him as gay and wanted to rob and kill him. Plenty of Laramie residents are shown as decent and caring and heartsick that the crime happened -- some of those are not anti-gay and some are. They agree that no one deserved Matt Sheppard's fate.
I wasn't in the least bothered that a lot of the actors in the production were recognizable to me from previous work. They're actors. In no other movie would such a criticism be leveled and I fail to understand why some have leveled it here. Some of the actors were unknown to me. So what? The question is, did they do a good job? I say they did an excellent job.
Other nay-sayers have questioned just why Matt Sheppard's murder captured so much media attention when other murders were not so celebrated in the press nor captured the public's heart and mind the way this one did.
I think one important factor is this. Matthew Sheppard was executed, after having been brutally beaten. Once the 5'2" man, hardly capable of defending himself against two much larger men, had his skull fractured and was semi-conscious, he was hauled out into the countryside and tied to a rail fence where he was further beaten. There is every aspect of a crucifixion here. Two men who had never done much harm to anyone plotted to take a very small man who had not threatened them in any way -- indeed he could not have threatened them physically -- and brutally execute him for no other reason than he was perceived as gay. Other murderers do what they do for a variety of deplorable reasons. The motive here was, "We hate queers and this one is little enough that we can easily murder him."
It was a despicable crime. Laramie, Wyoming reeled in the aftermath. This film presents the quandary of a town feeling that such a thing was not representative of them but knowing that the two murderers came from among their own children.
Those who feel Laramie was presented in a negative way by this film cannot, I submit, see the forest for the trees. Many of the people in this film are admirable in their reactions, and some are not. In the end, I concluded that Laramie isn't any worse than most places in America and I was even mindful that anti-gay murders have happened here in San Francisco.
That the trials of the two murderers were conducted as they were and resulted in the convictions and sentencing that they did actually reflect very positively on the justice system in the Wyoming county in which Laramie is found.
Cast:Christina Ricci .... Romaine Patterson
Steve Buscemi .... Doc O'Conner
Laura Linney .... Sherry Johnson
Summer Phoenix .... Jen Malmskog
Peter Fonda .... Doctor Cantway
Joshua Jackson .... Matt Galloway
Dawn E. Anderson .... Herself
Kevin Aviance .... Himself (archive footage)
James Murtaugh .... Reverend Fred Phelps
Bill Clinton .... Himself (speech promoting hate crimes legislation) (archive footage)
Ellen DeGeneres .... Herself (speaking at a memorial service) (archive footage)
Dylan Baker .... Rulon Stacey
Stephen Belber .... Anonymous friend of Aaron McKinney
Tom Bower .... Father Roger Schmit
Clancy Brown .... Rob Debree
Nestor Carbonell .... Moises Kaufman
Kathleen Chalfant .... Anonymous Female Rancher
Jeremy Davies .... Jedadiah Schultz
Clea DuVall .... Amanda Gronich
Michael Emerson .... Reverend
Noah Fleiss .... Shannon
Ben Foster .... Aaron Kreifels
Janeane Garofalo .... Catherine Connolly
Amanda Gronich .... Zackie Salmon
Mercedes Herrero .... Pam Sears
Bill Irwin .... Harry Woods
Terry Kinney .... Dennis Shepard
Regina Krueger .... Allison
Amy Madigan .... Reggie Fluty
Pat Mahoney .... Sgt. Hing
Camryn Manheim .... Rebecca Hillicker
Margo Martindale .... Trish Steger
John McAdams .... Jonas Slonaker
John Nance .... Jury Foreman
Garrett Neergaard .... Russell Henderson
Andy Paris .... Stephen Belber
Greg Pierotti .... John Peacock
Barbara Pitts .... Sherry
Richard Riehle .... Henderson
Judge Kelli Simpkins .... Leigh Fondakowski
Lois Smith .... Lucy Thompson
Frances Sternhagen .... Marge Murray
Grant Varjas .... Greg Pierotti
Mark Webber .... Aaron McKinney