Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer

Dir: Nick Broomfield

1992

****

Before 1993’s Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, charismatic documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield was known for his serious films but also for injecting a level of humour in them. This would mark the first time that he was relatively straight-faced, but much like his documentaries of the past, there are plenty of laughable characters available to him. There is nothing funny about the murder of seven people of course and the film digs up a lot of sadness exploring Wuornos’s childhood, but when Broomfield is confronted with the likes of Arlene Pralle (who adopted Wuornos when she was in her 30s) and her lawyer (and ex-musician) Steve Glazer, you can’t help but be amused (and bemused). It’s classic Broomfield. The Aileen Wuornos case had been blown up to all proportions due to Wuornos being the first female ‘serial killer’, and because she only killed men, was a prostitute and a lesbian. The Christian far-right wanted her burned at the stake, and to some extend the other poor and downtrodden of Florida did too, as they had been through just as much hardship and had managed to not kill anyone. She was easy to dislike. She would smile and then snarl soon after, she could look extremely menacing and she was rather outspoken, often saying shocking things in court. She famously said that she hoped the judge’s wife and kids would be ‘raped in the ass’ sometime in the future when given her triple death sentence, even though she had pleaded guilty and suggested she wanted to die. The truth of the matter was that Wuornos was a damaged individual and the result of a hard upbringing. The far-right are unsympathetic to such people, indeed it is hard to find sympathy for mass murderers but I think it is easy to understand how she came to be what she was. Arlene Pralle, who had mental health issues of her own, had contacted Wuornos after she became famous for her murders, she converted her into a born again Christian and even convinced her that she should plead guilty and let God judge her. To be honest, the film wasn’t really about the murders or the motives, Broomfield does allude to the fact Wuornos was acting in self-defence, as each victim had been a brutal client seeking sex from her, and becoming violent and forceful. The fact that a previous rape conviction in which she was the victim was overturned is seen as the turning point in the decline of her mental health, as the saying goes, everyone has a breaking point. The film, as the title suggests, is actually all about how Wuornos’s story had been sold. People were making vast amounts of money from the sale of her tragic story. Not only was Arlene Pralle and Steve Glazer taking money left right and centre from interviews (including Broomfield) but so were the investigating Police officers, who altered the investigation in attaining Hollywood film rights. It’s never clear whether Arlene Pralle is all there, while Steve Glazer is the documentaries court jester, completely devoid of tact and utterly unaware of what is and isn’t appropriate at any given time – his advice for clients facing the electric chair being “Don’t sit down”. However, the serious issue, that of a corrupt police force abusing their power, is explored with a rewarding conclusion. The film is funny at times but the laughs generally come from pure disbelief that such a situation could arise from such a series of crimes. Broomfield’s approach is honest and simple, which is why out of hundreds of documentaries on the subject, his is the only one anyone remembers. Rare for such a film that contains absolutely no sensationalism. It's just a shame the picture quality is so poor.