Casting JonBenet
Director - Kitty Green"There maybe could be something that could come out of this that could help"
JonBenet Ramsey. The 6 year old beauty pageant contestant who's murder late Christmas evening/early Boxing Day morning in 1996 became a national media sensation due to the various elements of the crime. The ransom note, the discovery of the body, the method of death and the unknown killer all contributed to headlines garnered by this case.
Kitty Green's Casting JonBenet is largely composed of interviews with actors and actresses auditioning to play the principles in the case; Jon, Patsy, Burke, the chief of police, Jon Mark Karr and the Santa. Green stages these interviews for uniformity. All the actors for each role occupy the same space in the same frame to create a sense of the characters they are auditioning for even though every actor brings something completely different to the role.
These actors are largely amateurs holding day jobs, a few have a little theatre or commercial experience, who fit the roles they are auditioning for on a personal level. None of them are here because they look like the real people, all shapes, sizes and looks are present (to an extent, everybody is white) and interviews highlight the personal aspects of their relationships to the murder case. These connections range from dating somebody who was briefly a person of interest to having a brother be murdered around the same time as JonBenet and filter down to feelings of personal connection with the real individuals. These actors all bring these connections and experiences to their interpretations and performances.
"The immediate rush of somebody wanting to find somebody to blame"
This is a film about those differences the individuals bring to their roles. While discussing the various aspects of the case each actor has varying theories as to what happened, why that happened and their reaction and connection to the case. It is our empathetic nature as human being to want to reach out and connect to those affected by tragedy and to search for answers even though we may personally have no possible way to ever confirm our beliefs. Only one person knows who killed JonBenet Ramsey and it is unlikely that their identity will ever be brought into the public eye yet this doesn't stop everybody, not just the actors showcased in this film, from trying to piece together the evidence themselves. Various theories exist, most are held by at least one person interviewed here, and they all fit the evidence to some extent and none will ever likely be proven definitively false.
The actual "movie" these actors participate in appears to be a dreadful by-the-numbers TV movie and it is for the best that is it largely relegated to snippets except for the final 10 minutes which is a montage of the various actors playing their various roles in a dreamlike intertwining structure that ends on an image of a young girl playing JonBenet in an angel's costume alone on a darkened stage in a spotlight reminding us that no matter how crazy and wild the facts are and how insane the theories get this is a story about a little girl that was murdered.
Schurmann Score - 7/10
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