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Analysis Of OJ : Made In America

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It was the mugshot seen everywhere. The case the shook a decade and changed the way the U.S public handles the crimes of celebrities. In 1994, then America’s sweetheart Orenthal Simpson better known as O.J Simpson was arrested and charged with the murders of his estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. There had never been a phenomenon like this before. It further separated an already divided nation and sparked a conversation on the obsession and idealizing of America’s elite. There have been many depictions of the crime and following court case, but only few correctly capture the essence of the race, celebrity, and power that lied at the center of the case. Ezra Edelman’s OJ: Made in America is one of the better documentaries. Edelman’s OJ: Made in America uses technical codes, specifically music and editing to explore the “Hollywood-esque” magnitude and celebrity of the OJ Simpson murder case and unbiasly connect viewers to the case.
The documentary goes through a series of songs and editing techniques that carry the film through different genres and represent the movie nature of the OJ Simpson vs. The People of Los Angeles case. It opens with an upbeat song similar to the opening credits of a Tarentino Film. As the music plays, descriptions and images of the horrendous crime flash across the screen. In “What a Documentary Is, After All” Carl Plantinga says the filmmaker’s intent is to create “representations that combine saying and showing”

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