Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Comments on the accuracy of the Lifetime movie about Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito

Part 26 in the Knox/Sollecito case

Lifetime premiered a movie on the murder of Meredith Kercher this week, called "Murder on Trial in Italy." I would like to hear everyone’s thoughts and possibly collect them into a summary. ABC and Candace Dempsey have reported on this movie.

13 comments:

Chris Halkides said...

To all,

The single thing that bothered me the most was that the press conference is portrayed as being after much of the forensics was know, when the press conference happened before any of the forensic evidence was known. This put the wrong kind of pressure on the forensic scientists.

At least equally egregious was that the movie portrayed Raffaele as having called the carabinieri after the postal police arrived. The opposite is true.

The break-in was portrayed as being almost certainly staged. However, Filomena herself accidently disturbed her own room when she retrieved her computer. No photographic evidence supports the contention that glass was on top of the clothes.

In reality Mignini moved the time of death to about 11:30 in his closing remarks, more than two years after the murder, not during the initial phases of the investigation.

Raffaele's DNA was not "abundant." It was on the borderline of being low-template in amount. And these are only some of the examples.

Marco2006 said...

Sloppy & untruthful the makers of this production perpetuated the injustice of Amanda & Raffaele's conviction.

Rose said...

Dempsey pointed out a pretty funny summary of the movie in one of her later posts. Well worth reading:

FauxFauxyKnauxy

Chris Halkides said...

Marco and Rose Montague,

Thanks for the link. It is inexcusable that the writers made so many mistakes. Here are two more whoppers:

The phone call from Amanda to Edda was about 12:45 PM Perugia time, and this was 4:45 Seattle time, not 3:00 AM. The prosecutor made this error in questioning Amanda.

There was no "mixed blood." Even Stefanoni acknowledged that mixed DNA (which is actually not uncommon) does not equate to mixed blood).

Anonymous said...

Shocking, the lies in this movie.
Disney is trash. Maybe Donald Trump can lead a a boycott of Disney

Chris Halkides said...

Anonymous,

Is Disney behind Lifetime? Many of the mistakes in the movie have been refuted for so long that I cannot understand how they could be made in good faith.

Kaosium said...

Disney owns Lifetime along with the Hearst Corporation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifetime_%28TV_network%29

Perhaps I've become jaded, but I have few expectations of strict factual accuracy when it comes to Hollywood, thus on that note it actually impressed me, especially by including little bits like dialogue from the 'gift' and the Daily Mail's 'soulless' article. They're storytellers, not historians, what they're interested in is telling a compelling tale not sticking to a strict interpretation of events--especially if that is unweildy onscreen.

Thus the only one that really jarred me was the inclusion of the discredited canard that Raffaele called the 2-1-1 after the postal police arrived. I think overall they were trying to focus more on the mother/daughter relationship (and avoid calunnia charges while the trial is ongoing) thus not concentrating on how the police botched the case, though it would have been a nice hint if they'd showed how all the forensic 'evidence' was compiled after the arrest, rather than imply otherwise.

Actually I was kinda surprised they were so restrained, I was expecting more sex and drugs to make an appearance, as well as more of the creation 'Foxy Knoxy.' I didn't even notice one common complaint, that they had Amanda wearing low-cut blouses, I guess I'm just too used to what actresses and college students wear it didn't leave an impression.

I guess I figure in the end they had Hayden playing it as innocent and the attempt to suggest she might actually have done it due to being jealous or angry came off as so ridiculous I can't see how many would buy it. I also wonder just how it would have come off having been made a year ago, and i'd be willing to bet there would have been a lot more 'suspicion' and a lot less of Mommy's little girl.

One thing I found hilarious, the way they had them go to the Marriot group and hire them, then in a subsequent scene we see all the Douglas Preston stuff coming from the NYT and Guardian. Mignini reacts just as he did, under the assumption it somehow is coming from this 'PR conspiracy.'

Kaosium said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kaosium said...

Rose! How did you get that url to link up like that? I've seen boards with this program and still have not figured out how to make the codes work. Wait, is it that href stuff? I can look that up, haven't used it in years though.

I will test it!

Fittingly, with a song appropriate to what happens sometimes to those who abuse power.

Randy said...

I thought the famous cartwheels were shown close to what may have happened.

The movie as a whole just seemed to be hastily put together trying to include memorable quotes from all involved with little continuity really.

Kaosium said...

I have never understood the attraction of the 'cartwheels.' I was watching an old clip earlier, CNN I think it was, with Barbie Nadeau, Douglas Preston, and another woman, and the interviewer kept asking about the cartwheels and the panel kept trying to talk about something relevant. It was surreal!

Anonymous said...

I HOPE SHE GETS SET FREE.

I HOPE HER DAD HAS A PRIVATE JET AT THE ITALIAN AIRPORT TO GET HER DAUGHTER OUT OF THERE.

THE VERDICT IS ANY MOMENT.

GET A PRIVATE JET AND HEAD OUTTA THERE!

Unknown said...

Everything is always a little surreal. See the link below for more info.


#surreal
www.ufgop.org