O.J.: Made in America (2016)

A chronicle of the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose high-profile murder trial exposed the extent of American racial tensions, revealing a fractured and divided nation.

Director:

Ezra Edelman

Stars:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mike Albanese, Muhammad Ali

Won 1 Oscar. Another 47 wins & 33 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	...	Himself (archive footage) (as Lew Alcindor)
Mike Albanese	...	Himself
Muhammad Ali	...	Himself (archive footage)
Marcus Allen	...	Himself (archive footage)
Bea Arthur	...	Herself (archive footage)
F. Lee Bailey	...	Himself
Danny Bakewell	...	Himself
Paula Barbieri	...	Herself (archive footage)
Rona Barrett	...	Herself (archive footage)
Joe Bell	...	Himself
Carrie Bess	...	Herself
Tom Bradley	...	Himself (archive footage)
Nicole Brown Simpson	...	Herself (archive footage)
Jim Brown	...	Himself
Tanya Brown	...	Herself

Storyline

It is the defining cultural tale of modern America - a saga of race, celebrity, media, violence, and the criminal justice system. And two decades after its unforgettable climax, it continues to fascinate, polarize, and even, yes, develop new chapters. Now, the producers of ESPN's award-winning "30 for 30" have made it the subject of their first documentary-event and most ambitious project yet. From Peabody and Emmy-award winning director Ezra Edelman, it's "O.J.: Made in America," a 10-hour multi-part production coming summer of 2016. To most observers, it's a story that began the night Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were brutally murdered outside her Brentwood apartment. But as "O.J." lays bare, to truly grasp the significance of what happened not just that night, but the epic chronicle to follow, one has to travel back to a much different, much earlier origin point, at not the end, but the beginning of the 20th century, when African-Americans began migrating to California ...

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Plot Keywords:

celebrity | running back | brentwood | media frenzy | sports hero | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Biography | Crime | History

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Certificate:

TV-MA

Details

Official Sites:

Official Site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

4 August 2016 (Spain)

Also Known As:

O.J.: Egy amerikai hős

Company Credits

Production Co:

ESPN Films, Laylow Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

467 min (5 parts)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Released the same year as FX's miniseries "American Crime Story (2016)".

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Goofs

Robert Shapiro says in an interview with Barbara Walters that O.J. Simpson was found innocent. Simpson was found "not guilty", not "innocent".

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Quotes

Marcia Clark - Interviewee: O.J. Simpson? Uh. I was never into sports, and I couldn't even tell you what game he played. I thought he was a has-been.

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Connections

Featured in Late Night with Seth Meyers: Martin Short/Ezra Edelman/Fortune Feimster/John Tempesta (2016)

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Soundtracks

Jump (For My Love)
Written by Stephen Mitchell (uncredited), Marti Sharron (uncredited) and Gary Skardina (uncredited)
Performed by The Pointer Sisters.

User Reviews

Outstanding Documentary. In Memory of Nicole and Ron.

This is one of the best documentaries i have ever seen. After recently watching the "not as good" "The People vs OJ Simpson" with John Travolta and Cuba Gooding Jr. This documentary was definitely a breath of fresh air.

The depth of it, the attention to all the details, the interviews, the massive amount of research that has gone into it. It is massive, to make this documentary is a tremendous undertaking, and is nothing but outstanding. It manages to keep you nailed to your seat for almost 8 hours, you sit and watch as you shake your head in disbelief. This documentary is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Even though most of us have heard about this story time and time again, and made up our minds years ago, the documentary gives you a new fresh look at things, you start from the very beginning. We follow OJ all the way back to when he started to become noticed as a good football player, and we follow him all the way to his fall from the top of the mountain.

The documentary does not take sides, which would be a terrible decision for any director to pursue, so after you have seen it, you have the ability to make up your own mind. Did OJ do it? Or did he not? I was never in doubt he was guilty of killing his wife and her friend, and this documentary didn't strengthen my opinion or weaken it, but it made me feel so sorry for Nicole Simpson and what she had been through, it is truly heartbreaking. I sit her and feel i wish i could go back in time and save her.

All the beatings, the abuse and the terror she had to endure through the years, she was the mother of his children, and was slaughtered as a pig, left to bleed out alongside her friend who were also bleeding out. And the guy who did it, got away free with murder. Horrible, just horrible.

The documentary does not filter this by censuring crime scene photos, no it shows them in close ups. To see what rage a person must have felt the moment he slices a woman's throat right in to her neck while she is still alive.

Now this is graphic, it is, but i think the documentary does it right by showing this to us. This is about the trial of the century, where a famous man faces the most famous justice system in the world. Will this justice system judge him based on the evidence?. Well most of us already know the outcome.

But why did this end the way it did?. There are details we have never seen or heard before, there are people that has not been able to speak out properly, this documentary has gathered key people from OJ's life all the way back to his childhood, and it builds an image of him, detailed, slowly, but never boring, it shows us who OJ really was, and how he became that way.

All the years after the murder of his wife, and OJ did nothing to find "the real killer". He was laughing and dancing, he had custody of his children, he lived a good life in a very nice house, and lived the dream as most others can't even dream of.

Watching all these clips of him, doing all this, and celebrating life as it was himself that was the god of it all, made me feel deeply sad for Nicole. If only someone had prevented this, if only someone could have done something.

I can never get those images of Nicole and Ron's crime scene photos out of my head. But i had to see them to feel how i do now.

Amazing documentary, highly recommended, both for those who know about the case and followed it, and for those who know nothing about it. See it, learn from it, and take in that this can actually happen.

My verdict is : 10/10