O.J.: Made in America

The documentary opens not with a murder case but with the history of the Los Angeles police in Black neighbourhoods. Then comes O. J. Simpson's football career: a star who refused to raise the subject of race and was accepted by white America through advertising. The two strands meet in 1994 and collide in a courtroom. The subject is not the crime but what the jury decided. The film shows that most jurors decided not on the evidence but on distrust of that police department, which turns the case from a murder file into the history of a city. The form runs past seven and a half hours in five parts. The length is not display: the film keeps going back to build context and each part changes the meaning of the one before. It caused a rule change. It was broadcast first as a television series, had a limited theatrical run and won the Oscar for documentary feature. The Academy then changed its rules to bar multi-part series from the category. Ezra Edelman directs. Prosecutors, lawyers, jurors, journalists and people close to Simpson speak; Simpson himself does not appear on camera. Who it is for: viewers interested in the history of race and justice in America. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a summary; the film imposes its length on purpose and loses its effect watched in pieces.