Last week, Amy Berg’s new documentary, West of Memphis, premiered in New York under the Sony Picture Classics label. The film chronicles the famous case of the West Memphis Three and the investigation that helped free them from a little over 18 years of wrongful imprisonment.
Representing the film on the red carpet were producer Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings), director Amy Berg, former prisoner Damien Echols and his supporting wife and chief activist, Lorri Davis. I had the chance to speak with each of them briefly on the carpet about their film, the experiences they had being a part of it and what the future holds. Check it out below.
Producer Peter Jackson:
Movie Buzzers: You’re obviously known for fantasy films and in your early days horror, why did you decide to produce a documentary and why did you decide to produce rather than direct it?
Peter Jackson: Well, our involvement with the case was never really about making a movie. Fran Walsh and I became part of Damien’s defense team, funding a lot of the investigative work and DNA testing. We did that for three or four years without any intention of doing a film at all, but after about three years, I think it was, we presented all the evidence we had uncovered in the case to Judge David Burnett, who was the original trial judge, because we were looking for him to grant an evidentiary hearing which was our chance to present all our new evidence in court and Burnett took one look at it, which we thought was very compelling, and he just threw it all out. He wanted to protect his original verdict and so at that point we thought how can we get this evidence out in front of the public, people need to learn what we found out so making a documentary seemed like the best way to do that. We had to work very closely with the lawyers because they weren’t expecting us to make a film and they entrusted us with a lot of very sensitive information and so we did it with their agreement and with the promise that we would never do anything in the documentary that would jeopardize Damien’s case or compromise the way the lawyers wanted to present the case. At that point we contacted Amy Berg ‘cause we were in New Zealand and had no way to spend any time in Arkansas and we needed a filmmaker that was prepared to go to Arkansas and stay there a really long time. We knew of Amy’s work and so we contacted her and fortunately she agreed to be involved in the film
What was the most surprising thing you learned along this journey of making this film?
PJ: Ah, interesting, interesting. Well one of the things that amazed me was the way Lorri Davis fought for her husband. Damien has had so much bad luck in this case, I mean being in the wrong place at the wrong time and ending up in jail the way he did, but on the other hand he has had some enormous good luck. Meeting Lorri and having Lorris Davis fighting for your life was, like an angel, and Lorri, I was just amazed at the way she would be undaunted, she’d have bad days, days where things were looking grim and we became very good friends with her and would comfort her from time to time, but most of the time she was tenacious and she had a spirit about her which is incredible. He was a lucky man to have her on his team.
Do you think the men would have been freed if high profile figures such as yourself hadn’t been involved in the case?
PJ: They got freed because of the investigative work, it wasn’t because of the celebrities it was because of the actual evidence that we uncovered. I mean when we got involved we wanted our names to be kept under the radar; we didn’t let anyone know that we were involved in the case because we didn’t think that was going to help. I mean the celebrity advocacy was very important because it drew people’s attention to it and you gotta shine a spotlight on these cases to get the politicians to do the right thing, but ultimately even that alone is not going to be enough to get the case overturned, it has to be based on evidence. So it was forensic expertise, it was investigative work, it was DNA results, it was those things more than anything that really got these guys out.
Director Amy Berg
Movie Buzzers: There have been a lot of documentaries made about the West Memphis Three at this point, what made you decide there should be another one?
Amy Berg: It had been 11 years since the last film had come out when I was contacted and this man right here [pointing to Damien] was on death row so we needed to do something about it. They [Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson and Lorri Davis] had spent years investigating different types of forensics and DNA and everything was refused so when I came in there was a clear kind of mission statement, lets help get these guys out of jail. I had to spend some time making sure I believed they were innocent, I had spent six months doing research on all the evidence and when I was convinced I wanted to help. I saw him sitting on death row and I thought who am I to not do something?
MB: So the case has obviously been ever changing, details surfacing, evidence surfacing. When you were filming the actual documentary, was it tough to figure out, this is the final cut, this is when we have to stop filming?
AB: Yes, we had 800 hours of footage and I mean it was insane but it was an investigation. It was a film but it was an investigation mostly, you know? A lot of the leads we followed were just rabbit holes but then there was a lot of really amazing information that were game changers. We had five witnesses that had never spoken to anyone that recanted their testimony and it was like an evolving investigation as we were working on it.
MB: Did you ever get exhausted where you just went “I don’t want to do this?”
AB: Oh yeah, over and over again. The truth is I would just go home and rest a little bit and then go back. Its’ exhausting, it was Arkansas, the weather is extreme, people are highly dramatic, there was a lot of deterrents. People are on meth, there were just a lot of deterrents but we ended up pushing through and we came out on the other end, so that was good.
MB: So you have two more documentaries in the works before you jump into feature films…
AB: ..oh no I’m doing my feature next, that’s the thing I’m working on right now.
MB: Ah, I see, well then just out of curiosity what’s This is America! [her documentary] Going to be about?
AB: Oh, it’s a political documentary. We’re looking at why we vote the way we vote and how political the governments become.
Damien Echols and Lorri Davis
Movie Buzzers: Few imprisoned individuals receive the outpouring of popular support that you did. What did it mean to you that people refused to give up on securing your freedom?
Damien Echols: Well it’s what saved our lives, people think just because you have evidence that points towards your innocence you’re getting out. That’s not the case. They’ll still kill you and sweep it under the rug. If it weren’t for people like Peter and Fran, or like Johnny Depp or Eddie Vedder bringing attention to the case I would still be sitting in prison right now.
MB: Why did you both decide to come onboard as producers of the film and step into the filmmaking realm?
Lorri Davis: Well I think it was important. There have been other documentaries and other media done on our case but its different when you can come on as a producer and have some control over the input of the story and have input into the private part and the investigation, which we were working on, [working on] both of those things.
MB: You’re also going to be executive producers on the memoir Life After Death [Damien’s memoir], Johnny Depp optioned it, is that going to get rolling anytime soon?
DE: We’re still going over details right now. It’s still in the very, very early stages. We’re not sure what we’re going to do with it yet or how we’re gonna go about it but hopefully that’ll be our next project.
Thanks to the Peggy Siegal Company and Sony Picture Classics for allowing us to attend this fascinating and inspiring event.
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