Aileen life and death of a serial killer By Nick Broomfield

Aileen life and death of a serial killer By Nick Broomfield

 

Opening 6 minutes:

1.      Which types of footage are used in the opening?

Child footage, photos of the dead, interviews with relatives of victims, police footage and news footage.

2.      What documentary techniques can you identify in the sequence?

Interviews were divided into sections of the documentary. Narrator would explain more to us about Aileen during the interviews. Voice overs of interviews (voice of god). Allot of quotes and facts. Short clips of news articles referring to the Aileen.

3.      What information is given to us in the first 6 minutes?

A.     She is a prostitute who travels around allot and sleeps rough most the time

B.      That she is a serial killer and killed a large number of men (7)

C.      She went to the police and a like camera showed her confessing to the mass murder, she was the arrested

D.     She has an aggressive hate for men

E.      She thinks the police system is corrupt

4.      How is the opening sequence of the documentary similar to the opening scene of a fiction film?

The introduction to the documentary is similar to a fiction film because they both introduce the main character and they key things about them to keep the audience captivated. They also jump straight into the action in our case that was when the news reports appeared in the documentary talking about the mass murder.

Information on the whole documentary

A.     Name of documentary?

Eileen life and death of a serial killer

B.      Film maker/ producer?

Nick Broomfield

C.      Genre?

Documentary

D.     Where was the production filmed?

Was all filmed in America, some of the documentary was filmed in a prison where Aileen was being held, other places were also visited in the documentary most them were places where Aileen had lived or had encounters.

E.      Purpose of the documentary?

There are a few reasons why the documentary was made, firstly for interest, it’s fascinating looking into the life of serial killer and seeing what she had to say on the murders it defiantly had my attention throughout the documentary. Secondly it was to investigate; Nick Broomfield was asking her a lot of the time in her interviews what had happened to her in the past to make her so upset and angry and why she committed the murders, from the audience’s point of view it feels like you’re watching an investigation.

F.       Other relevant contexts?

This documentary is very historical because firstly it was in the past and secondly she was the first female serial killer in America, secondly its political, this may be true or not but Aileen made a lot of accusations about the police/law/government saying they were manipulating her. A very personal documentary too because it looks into the whole life of Aileen which most of is bad.

G.     Narration?

The narrator was also Nick Broomfield, his voice was slightly irritating but he did a very good job. The reason for this is the way he made friends with Aileen, when he bonded with her more and more each time he got more and more information out of Aileen, she smiled whenever she saw him. This made me as the audience also feel connected to Aileen in the same way that Nick did.

H.     Sequence of the documentation?

The sequence of the documentation is very simple, its starts from the beginning when Aileen has been arrested just after committing the murders and works through the years until the documentation ends with Aileen being dead after having her death sentence.

I.        Use of selection?

Nick does not include any interviews with the police or any kind of law and he also doesn’t include relatives of Aileen’s victims. I suspect this may because Nick was only focusing his documentary on Aileen and her life and her side of the story.

Here are some websites and articles I found on the internet about Aileen Wournos which I shall embed in a list below

Wikepedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos

New York times: http://www.nytimes.com/keyword/aileen-wuornos

Orlando Sentinental: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/keyword/wuornos

Q: What are your feelings towards Aileen after watching the documentary? What emotions did it stir?

A: My feelings towards Aileen are mixed, one side of me says she deserved to go to prison, what she did is unacceptable no matter what reason, however my other side says that she had been through a lot in her life like being beaten by her dad and raped by her brother, her mother abandoned her at child birth, that surely would mess her up in the head which is why I believe that she was crazy when she committed the murders

Q: Did Nick Broomfield portray the real Aileen in his documentary?

A: Nick Broomfield in my opinion did portray the real Aileen because after they both got to know each other well through all the interviews she opened up to him/ audience and told us a lot about her childhood/ teen hood and more. It was was hard to tell if everything she said was true though because she did show cases of madness and also did lie about being in self-defence when she had shot the 6 men which she then apparently owned up to and said that she had done it deliberately. One thing I did notice also is that Nick only focused his documentation on what Aileen had to say and didn’t ask anyone for example like the police or victims’ relative which in my opinion is biased.

Q: Do you believe that Aileen should have received the death penalty, why?

A: I believe she didn’t deserve the death penalty, she deserved to be punished for her evil crimes but a life sentence or 40-50 years would have been better than a death penalty. I think she didn’t deserve the death penalty because a life for a life solves nothing and secondly she was obviously mental in the head so she needed help and if she’d been treated as soon as someone had realised it may have saved the lives of the men who were killed by her, I’m not saying it’s not her fault I’m just saying she was crazy which means she most likely committed the crime without thinking straight about it.