British documentarian Nick Broomfield hadbeen searching for a story to tell about his adopted home ofLos Angeles ever since he moved to the city in the mid-Nineties. His new film, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, is a quintessential L.A. tale a gruesome true-crime tale rooted in the the social and economic inequalitiesthat plague the city.
When I came across the story of the Grim Sleeper, Broomfieldtells Rolling Stone, what was amazing about it was that it was about a community that was abandoned, about disposable peoplewhich is why it took a computer to catch a serial killer, who might have killed over a hundred people.
Tales of the Grim Sleeper tells the harrowing story of the 30-year search (or lack thereof) for a Los Angeles serial killer who was accused of 12 grisly homicides and possibly committed far more between the mid-Eighties and 2010, when the alleged murderer Lonnie Franklin was arrested. While the L.A.P.D. knew early onthat the Sleeper was targeting black women in South Central Los Angeles, they did not alert the community of that factuntil 2007.
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In this chat with Rolling Stone, Broomfield talks about the challenge of entering the disenfranchised, depressed South Central community as an outsider, as well as how the Grim Sleepers story relates to the recent killings of unarmed black men by police in Ferguson and Staten Island.
I think its about disenfranchised people who dont have a voice, who do not have the right to participate in local politics, in the selection of the kind of police force they want. Weve seen this in Ferguson, its exactly the same in downtown Los Angeles, its exactly the same probably in parts of New York and Chicago and any big urban city area and it reflects a bigger set of political priorities which have gone very astray since the late Seventies.
In another clip, Broomfield talks about one particularly hairy situation he encountered while working on his 1994 film about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Tracking Down Maggie. Broomfield recalled how he and his crew were in Houston tracking down leads about shady arms deals Thatcher and her son were allegedlyinvolved in, and how they eventually found themselves being followed.
Normally, you can assess the dangers and just behave well, like if you go into South Central, have someone whos respected in the community take you in, have a guide, Broomfield says. When youre dealing with highly respected international politicians, like Margaret Thatcher, be really careful if you start digging in their dirt, because youll end up hanging in your closet.
Tales of the Grim Sleeper opens in theaters today,December 19th, and will start airing on HBO in April. The film has already been shortlisted for an Academy Award.