Maybe OT, maybe not, definitely spoilers -
Did anybody else watch this on PBS last night? Pretty interesting story about the 'facts' around this famous case, which was a bit before my time in 1964. The press reported 38 people watched her be murdered and did nothing and that became the story. It led to reforms in 911, whole entire branch of psychology/sociology and a 'Kitty Genovese effect' where bystanders do nothing to stop a crime.
Genovese's younger brother, after 50 years, decides to find out the truth of about the murder for (and the 38 bystanders) for some closure and finds that just about the only thing reported in the story that was true is that she was murdered. They can't even get the bystander number right as some places report it as 37 witnesses and some it's 39. And then he tracks down a few of the surviving ones and finds that most heard screams, but didn't see anything (only 5 people saw enough to testify). One guys yells out the window and stops the initial attack. One guy says he called the police and they hung up on him saying they've already been called. (It's not impossible that was an invented memory to help cope but the interviews are interesting regardless). One woman who only heard the screams is flabbergasted when he tells her she could be one of the 38, and she denies her mother woke up at all and she is also part of it. And finally her neighbor and friend came down to the entrance to the building and held her while she died (this one is most important to her brother who spent all that time thinking she died alone because that's what was reported).
A bizarre counterpoint is when he meets the minister son of the killer who says he's spent his whole life under the impression she was part of the Genovese crime family and he was afraid to meet the brother (he's a wheelchair due to being wounded in Vietnam). He also says he thinks the case's extreme notoriety meant his father spent his life in prison when otherwise he would been released at some point.
I searched Genovese to see if anyone had seen this previously and got a lot results about the Kitty Genovese from TSM, and even a post where ChiTown mentions the aforementioned affect and posted a video that repeats a lot of the reported facts about the case. Just shows how much the initial report had become accepted as truth.
!Warning! At one point they are talking about research that resulted from the incident and some kind of paper mentioning Paterno and Kitty Genovese in the title flashes on screen for a split second. If that's the kind of thing that results in one being irrationally mad probably best to just skip it.
Ebert's review from last year:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-witness-2016
Did anybody else watch this on PBS last night? Pretty interesting story about the 'facts' around this famous case, which was a bit before my time in 1964. The press reported 38 people watched her be murdered and did nothing and that became the story. It led to reforms in 911, whole entire branch of psychology/sociology and a 'Kitty Genovese effect' where bystanders do nothing to stop a crime.
Genovese's younger brother, after 50 years, decides to find out the truth of about the murder for (and the 38 bystanders) for some closure and finds that just about the only thing reported in the story that was true is that she was murdered. They can't even get the bystander number right as some places report it as 37 witnesses and some it's 39. And then he tracks down a few of the surviving ones and finds that most heard screams, but didn't see anything (only 5 people saw enough to testify). One guys yells out the window and stops the initial attack. One guy says he called the police and they hung up on him saying they've already been called. (It's not impossible that was an invented memory to help cope but the interviews are interesting regardless). One woman who only heard the screams is flabbergasted when he tells her she could be one of the 38, and she denies her mother woke up at all and she is also part of it. And finally her neighbor and friend came down to the entrance to the building and held her while she died (this one is most important to her brother who spent all that time thinking she died alone because that's what was reported).
A bizarre counterpoint is when he meets the minister son of the killer who says he's spent his whole life under the impression she was part of the Genovese crime family and he was afraid to meet the brother (he's a wheelchair due to being wounded in Vietnam). He also says he thinks the case's extreme notoriety meant his father spent his life in prison when otherwise he would been released at some point.
I searched Genovese to see if anyone had seen this previously and got a lot results about the Kitty Genovese from TSM, and even a post where ChiTown mentions the aforementioned affect and posted a video that repeats a lot of the reported facts about the case. Just shows how much the initial report had become accepted as truth.
!Warning! At one point they are talking about research that resulted from the incident and some kind of paper mentioning Paterno and Kitty Genovese in the title flashes on screen for a split second. If that's the kind of thing that results in one being irrationally mad probably best to just skip it.
Ebert's review from last year:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-witness-2016
