Director Ezra Edelman’s 467-minute “O.J.: Made in America” was created for ESPN’s nonfiction series “30 for 30,” but had a brief theatrical run in New York City and Los Angeles, and was nominated for an Academy Award. It was nominated for the Outstanding Documentary Award. . It deservedly won the trophy, despite some derision that it was really a miniseries (the Academy has guaranteed that this will never happen again).
You decide for yourself when you check out this movie on Netflix. Even if you think you’re not interested in this sordid story, you absolutely should. Edelman’s films are truly fascinating. The first half depicts Simpson’s rise to fame in sports and media, which is especially important to those who weren’t in that part of his career. Edelman skillfully demonstrates how Simpson seduced an entire nation. Unlike Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Jim Brown, Simpson was not political. He considered himself post-racial. “I’m not black,” he reportedly said in the documentary, “I’m O.J.”
The second half peels back the layers of Simpson and gets to the core of the sociopathy of a man who believed he was above the law because he was too attractive to be caught. And he was right, at least to some extent. Despite an avalanche of circumstantial evidence, Simpson was acquitted of murder. Although he was convicted in a civil trial, this has always felt like a footnote in the Simpson story. Since he was still free, he made it impossible for us to ignore him.
