Zoneboy
12-02-2014, 02:36 AM
Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/arts/television/hbo-plans-documentary-on-robert-durst.html?_r=0)
The life of Robert A. Durst could be the stuff of legend.
The shrewd, enigmatic scion of a prominent New York real estate family, Mr. Durst has come to be known not for his deal-making prowess, but for the cloud of suspicion he has lived under for more than 30 years.
He was investigated, but never charged, in the mysterious disappearance of his young, beautiful first wife and the mob-like execution of a close friend in Los Angeles. He beheaded a cantankerous neighbor in Texas in what he described as an act of self-defense, cross-dressed to conceal his identity and then escaped the police, whose nationwide manhunt took them to Northern California, then New Orleans and, finally, Bethlehem, Pa., where Mr. Durst had gone to college.
But other than a few cryptic asides to reporters, Mr. Durst, 71, has kept his own counsel.
Until now.
HBO is announcing this week that it plans to broadcast a six-part documentary called “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.” Made with Mr. Durst’s cooperation, HBO says, the documentary, to air this February, will unravel the disappearance of Mr. Durst’s wife, Kathie, in one of the most notorious unsolved mysteries in New York history, and expose long-buried information about the man suspected in that and other unsolved crimes.
It is based on nearly 10 years of research by the filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling, who made the 2010 film “All Good Things,” a lightly fictionalized account of Mr. Durst’s life. The filmmakers say they reviewed thousands of court documents and interviewed more than 100 friends, investigators, prosecutors, journalists (including this reporter), defense lawyers and relatives of Kathie Durst and Mr. Durst’s friend Susan Berman.
But the core of the documentary is more than 25 hours of interviews with Mr. Durst, who in his slow-paced, gravelly voice talks about his privileged upbringing as a member of a family that owns 10 Manhattan skyscrapers and numerous apartment buildings and became a force in New York City politics.
He describes a tangled relationship with his powerful father, Seymour, and the betrayal he felt when his younger brother, Douglas, was tapped to take the reins of the family business.
The documentary’s producers declined to detail the topics Mr. Durst discussed, but they seem likely to include his mother’s suicide when he was 7; his wife’s disappearance in 1982; the killing of Ms. Berman, his confidante, in 2000; and the dismemberment of his neighbor in a $300-a-month rooming house in Galveston, Tex., in 2001.
“Certainly the things he’s been accused of are tabloid-worthy,” Mr. Jarecki said. “But what’s clear about Bob, if you spend five minutes with him, is that he’s a deeply complicated person who cannot be summarized in a simple way.”
But why, after 32 years of silence, did Mr. Durst decide to talk now?
“I think he felt understandably frustrated by the fact that he has not been able to speak for himself,” Mr. Jarecki said.
Mr. Durst has long been estranged from his family, and 13 of his relatives have obtained orders of protection against him. The Dursts did not cooperate with the documentary and once threatened to sue Mr. Jarecki over “All Good Things,” which they said unfairly characterized their family.
Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for the Durst Organization, called the documentary “a self-indulgent work of fiction.”
“Given that Robert is likely underwriting the film, it should rival the great works of propaganda,” he said.
The filmmakers said that as a matter of journalistic independence, they do not accept funding from the subject of a film.
Michael Lombardo, president for programming at HBO, said it would air the series on Sunday nights alongside its premier programming. “It’s emotional, riveting storytelling that happens to be told in a documentary format,” he said.
Mr. Durst severed connections to his father and family in the mid-1990s, roughly a decade after the disappearance of Kathie Durst, five months before she would have graduated from medical school. By most accounts, their marriage had descended into violent confrontations.
The case lay dormant for 18 years, until a New York State Police investigator began tracking new leads in 2000, setting off a bizarre series of events. Mr. Durst fled New York, renting an apartment in Galveston, disguised as a mute woman.
His friend Ms. Berman, who had been his spokeswoman after Kathie Durst’s disappearance, was found dead in her Los Angeles home on Christmas Eve, shot in the back of the head. No one has been charged in that case.
Mr. Durst was then charged with murdering and dismembering a former merchant seaman who lived across the hall from him in Galveston. A jury acquitted him of murder, accepting his account of an accidental shooting that occurred as he tried to defend himself. Mr. Durst did spend more than three years in prison for bail jumping and other crimes.
Mr. Jarecki picked up Mr. Durst’s story after finishing the 2003 Oscar-nominated documentary “Capturing the Friedmans,” the story of the disintegration of a Long Island family amid charges of child molesting.
Mr. Jarecki said he could relate on some level with Mr. Durst, since his own childhood had been marked by a distant, overbearing father. “There’s an intrinsic truth — a deep rift in that family — that I can understand,” he said.
Mr. Jarecki and Mr. Smerling were unable to reach Mr. Durst during the five years they spent on “All Good Things.” But shortly before the premiere of the film, which starred Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst, Mr. Durst called the film’s distributor, Magnolia Pictures.
Mr. Jarecki and Mr. Smerling met with Mr. Durst and arranged a viewing of the film, which he liked so much that he agreed to be interviewed.
Today, Mr. Durst lives in Texas and owns a townhouse in Harlem. In 2006, he gained $65 million in settling a lawsuit against Douglas Durst over his share of the family fortune.
And he is still making headlines of sorts. He was arrested this summer in Houston and accused of urinating on a candy rack in a pharmacy.
He is also due in court in New York on Dec. 10 on charges of trespassing onto Durst family property on West 43rd Street.
Perhaps the most focused viewers of the documentary series will be the family of Kathie Durst, which has long waited for developments that would help solve her disappearance. Kathie’s brother, James McCormack, who was interviewed for the documentary, said he hoped to see in it an “epiphany of conscience.”
The life of Robert A. Durst could be the stuff of legend.
The shrewd, enigmatic scion of a prominent New York real estate family, Mr. Durst has come to be known not for his deal-making prowess, but for the cloud of suspicion he has lived under for more than 30 years.
He was investigated, but never charged, in the mysterious disappearance of his young, beautiful first wife and the mob-like execution of a close friend in Los Angeles. He beheaded a cantankerous neighbor in Texas in what he described as an act of self-defense, cross-dressed to conceal his identity and then escaped the police, whose nationwide manhunt took them to Northern California, then New Orleans and, finally, Bethlehem, Pa., where Mr. Durst had gone to college.
But other than a few cryptic asides to reporters, Mr. Durst, 71, has kept his own counsel.
Until now.
HBO is announcing this week that it plans to broadcast a six-part documentary called “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.” Made with Mr. Durst’s cooperation, HBO says, the documentary, to air this February, will unravel the disappearance of Mr. Durst’s wife, Kathie, in one of the most notorious unsolved mysteries in New York history, and expose long-buried information about the man suspected in that and other unsolved crimes.
It is based on nearly 10 years of research by the filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling, who made the 2010 film “All Good Things,” a lightly fictionalized account of Mr. Durst’s life. The filmmakers say they reviewed thousands of court documents and interviewed more than 100 friends, investigators, prosecutors, journalists (including this reporter), defense lawyers and relatives of Kathie Durst and Mr. Durst’s friend Susan Berman.
But the core of the documentary is more than 25 hours of interviews with Mr. Durst, who in his slow-paced, gravelly voice talks about his privileged upbringing as a member of a family that owns 10 Manhattan skyscrapers and numerous apartment buildings and became a force in New York City politics.
He describes a tangled relationship with his powerful father, Seymour, and the betrayal he felt when his younger brother, Douglas, was tapped to take the reins of the family business.
The documentary’s producers declined to detail the topics Mr. Durst discussed, but they seem likely to include his mother’s suicide when he was 7; his wife’s disappearance in 1982; the killing of Ms. Berman, his confidante, in 2000; and the dismemberment of his neighbor in a $300-a-month rooming house in Galveston, Tex., in 2001.
“Certainly the things he’s been accused of are tabloid-worthy,” Mr. Jarecki said. “But what’s clear about Bob, if you spend five minutes with him, is that he’s a deeply complicated person who cannot be summarized in a simple way.”
But why, after 32 years of silence, did Mr. Durst decide to talk now?
“I think he felt understandably frustrated by the fact that he has not been able to speak for himself,” Mr. Jarecki said.
Mr. Durst has long been estranged from his family, and 13 of his relatives have obtained orders of protection against him. The Dursts did not cooperate with the documentary and once threatened to sue Mr. Jarecki over “All Good Things,” which they said unfairly characterized their family.
Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for the Durst Organization, called the documentary “a self-indulgent work of fiction.”
“Given that Robert is likely underwriting the film, it should rival the great works of propaganda,” he said.
The filmmakers said that as a matter of journalistic independence, they do not accept funding from the subject of a film.
Michael Lombardo, president for programming at HBO, said it would air the series on Sunday nights alongside its premier programming. “It’s emotional, riveting storytelling that happens to be told in a documentary format,” he said.
Mr. Durst severed connections to his father and family in the mid-1990s, roughly a decade after the disappearance of Kathie Durst, five months before she would have graduated from medical school. By most accounts, their marriage had descended into violent confrontations.
The case lay dormant for 18 years, until a New York State Police investigator began tracking new leads in 2000, setting off a bizarre series of events. Mr. Durst fled New York, renting an apartment in Galveston, disguised as a mute woman.
His friend Ms. Berman, who had been his spokeswoman after Kathie Durst’s disappearance, was found dead in her Los Angeles home on Christmas Eve, shot in the back of the head. No one has been charged in that case.
Mr. Durst was then charged with murdering and dismembering a former merchant seaman who lived across the hall from him in Galveston. A jury acquitted him of murder, accepting his account of an accidental shooting that occurred as he tried to defend himself. Mr. Durst did spend more than three years in prison for bail jumping and other crimes.
Mr. Jarecki picked up Mr. Durst’s story after finishing the 2003 Oscar-nominated documentary “Capturing the Friedmans,” the story of the disintegration of a Long Island family amid charges of child molesting.
Mr. Jarecki said he could relate on some level with Mr. Durst, since his own childhood had been marked by a distant, overbearing father. “There’s an intrinsic truth — a deep rift in that family — that I can understand,” he said.
Mr. Jarecki and Mr. Smerling were unable to reach Mr. Durst during the five years they spent on “All Good Things.” But shortly before the premiere of the film, which starred Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst, Mr. Durst called the film’s distributor, Magnolia Pictures.
Mr. Jarecki and Mr. Smerling met with Mr. Durst and arranged a viewing of the film, which he liked so much that he agreed to be interviewed.
Today, Mr. Durst lives in Texas and owns a townhouse in Harlem. In 2006, he gained $65 million in settling a lawsuit against Douglas Durst over his share of the family fortune.
And he is still making headlines of sorts. He was arrested this summer in Houston and accused of urinating on a candy rack in a pharmacy.
He is also due in court in New York on Dec. 10 on charges of trespassing onto Durst family property on West 43rd Street.
Perhaps the most focused viewers of the documentary series will be the family of Kathie Durst, which has long waited for developments that would help solve her disappearance. Kathie’s brother, James McCormack, who was interviewed for the documentary, said he hoped to see in it an “epiphany of conscience.”