오늘 밤에 채널 4에서 닉 브룸필드의 다큐멘터리 'Aileen: life and death of a serial killer' 를 보내준다고 합니다. 'The Selling of a Serial Killer' 에 이어서 브룸필드의 두 번째 우어노스 다큐멘터리입니다.

이걸 본다면 찰리즈 테론이 연기한 그 인물을 직접(?) 보게 되는군요. 테론은 몬스터를 찍기 전에 브룸필드에게 전화해서 자문을 구하고 숙제를 열심히 했다고 하네요.

영화는 너무 심히 스트레스를 받을 것 같아서 못 보았는데 티비에서 해 주는 다큐멘타리는 볼 생각을 하는 걸 보면 참 이상하죠. 닉 브룸필드의 '커트와 코트니'를 영화관에서 보고 나서 비교적 균형 잡혔으면서도 어디까지 자신의 편향이 들어가는지 최대한 밝히려고 하는 태도가 좋았거든요. 대개 다큐멘타리는 객관적인 척 하는 외투를 입는데 말이죠.

우어노스 사건이야 뭐 워낙 떠들썩 했었지만, 성/폭력에 대해서 굉장히 촉수를 발달시킨 미국 급진 페미니스트들이 이 여자를 옹호했다고 해서 '꼴통'에 해당하는 소리를 들었던 것 같더라구요. 이런 극단적이고 선정적인 이야기 뒤에 있는 복잡하고도 딱한 인간은 어디로 가고, 급진 페미니스트와 안티페미니스트 틈바구니에서 악녀에서 복수의 여신 사이를 오락가락했나봐요.

어려서부터 끔찍한 폭력에 노출되어 심각한 정신적 문제가 있는 사람의 딱하고도 역시 잔인한 결말인 것 같던데. 역시, 이데올로기는 사람을 대상화하는 면이 많은 것 같아요. 아무리 의도가 좋더라도.

죽은 7명의 남자들이야 억울하겠지만, 그렇다고 이런 사람을 사형 시키는게 '정의'인지, 누가 뭐라든 국가의 이름으로 집행되는 또다른 살인인데 말이죠. 독실한 청교도적인 나라 미국에선 '용서'보다는 '복수'에 더 관심이 많은 것 같네요. 그리고 페미니스트들의 우어노스 변호에 대해서 입에 거품을 물고 불쌍하게 죽은 남자들의 권리를 옹호하던 리버럴들, 사형제도에도 그만큼 뛰어야 하는 것 아닌지.

우어노스는 플로리다에서 2년전인가 사형 당했지요?(이것도 '스포일러'라고 누군가 불평할 지도 모르겠군요)


다음은 브룸필드가 '몬스터'에 대해 이야기 하는 가디언 인터뷰 입니다.

'I thought I was really watching her'

Nick Broomfield spent years with Aileen Wuornos for his documentary on the serial killer. How would Monster compare with the woman he knew?

Interview by Steve Rose
Wednesday March 24, 2004
The Guardian

Monster isn't the first film to have been made about Aileen Wuornos. In 1992, Peter Levin made a TV movie called Overkill, starring Jean Smart, which I felt had nothing to do with who Wuornos really was or the complexity of her character. So I initially helped Charlize Theron in her preparation for playing Wuornos in Monster because I thought it was important for the best possible representation of Wuornos to come out.

I had met Theron before: she had seen my film The Leader, the Driver and the Driver's Wife, and we had a shared interest in South Africa, where she grew up. When she was offered the role, she called up and asked for any footage I might have. I sent her a copy of The Selling of a Serial Killer, my first film about Wuornos, as well as a rough cut of the later film Life and Death of a Serial Killer. These formed the basis of her performance.

I was reluctant to watch Monster, fearing that Theron's portrayal of Aileen might be a pale imitation of someone I had known for more than 10 years, but in fact she fully understood Wuornos, her mood swings, her facial gestures, the way she talked, moved, her inner emotional complexity. At times I actually thought I was watching Wuornos.

So far so good. My disappointment, though, is that there has been so little discussion of Wuornos's life. She was barely mentioned by the media at the time of the Oscars [Theron won best actress], although ironically it was Wuornos's birthday that day - even more remarkably, it was February 29 and this is a leap year. The main media interest centered around the idea of the beautiful Theron transforming herself into the overweight, boozy, psychotic Wuornos.

Monster deals with a fairly short period of Wuornos's life, when she was committing the murders, and was romantically involved with Tyria Moore (who is called Selby in the film). It concentrates very much on her need to be loved and her need for a family, for all those things in life that she didn't have, and I think within that context, Monster does very well.

What the film doesn't do is examine Wuornos's background. It doesn't go into her childhood, or deal with the family she grew up in or the neighbourhood she grew up in. We don't get a clearer understanding of what might have led to her killing seven men. She was badly abused by all the men in her life - there were rumours that her grandfather was actually her father, and that he in turn abused her as a child. Her father was a sex offender who committed suicide in prison when Wuornos was 13 - her parents' marriage had ended when she was in the womb. She had an incestuous relationship with her brother, and was forced to live in the woods like a wild animal from the age of 13, before turning to prostitution. This clearly raises questions about the shortcomings of the social welfare system in and around Troy, where Aileen grew up. How come this was all unreported and no action was ever taken?

Monster doesn't concern itself with Wuornos's death either, or the inappropriateness of her execution. The point of making Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer was to get the debate on the death penalty going. This is particularly relevant in an election year, when you have a president who established a world record execution rate when he was governor of Texas, and when, just a year ago, the president' s own brother, Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, signed the execution papers for this woman.

Wuornos's case is about the rule of law being disregarded, right from her first trial. At the time of her execution, Wuornos was definitely psychotic. She was convinced her mind was controlled by radio waves and believed she was going to be taken off in a space ship to join Jesus Christ. She never showed any remorse; she firmly believed she was ridding the streets of evil men. When a priest came to take her confession just before the execution she sent him packing and knelt down and prayed for her victims, believing they were evil and that God should accept them into heaven.

When Jeb Bush cynically produced three psychiatrists to assess Wuornos's mental state and then pronounced her mentally competent, there was a complete disrespect for what the law really intends, which is that people of unsound mind should not be executed.

That same disregard for the rule of law is evident in the Bush administration. I have travelled widely outside the US in the past 18 months, in Africa, Asia and South America. It doesn't matter where you go, people despise the president. They don't believe in him as a leader, as an honest and fair man who will ever do them right. When you have that disregard, and a breakdown in belief in the justice system, you get anarchy. I think that is the important debate. It's not just Jeb Bush fudging Wuornos's sanity, it's the belief that it's OK to fudge it.

I am talking about these things from the point of view of a documentary film-maker, but I think that is what art is about, too. Art is exciting because of the extent to which it reflects society in a meaningful way and gets a debate going. I hope Monster will raise some of these issues in the consciousness of people who might not have been thinking about them otherwise.

The reason that Charlize Theron's role in Monster is so great is because there was enough of Aileen Wuornos for her to base her performance on. Wuornos was the person who gave her that. And in return, we should talk about Wuornos's life.