Dinner with Killer?
An interview with David White, director of Killer?
Killer? gives the floor to a man accused of patricide. In particular, he expresses the weight that the suspicion of others represents. Why does public opinion often doubt the innocence of someone before they are even tried?
Firstly, in the film he has gone to trial and been found not guilty, which is a slight difference. So there must have been some suspicion of him to even get to court. But this is where your question comes into light. I think people want there to be easy answers, and, one person left while the rest of their family is dead, we, as humans, assume without knowing all the facts that it was that one person. Furthermore, most of us rely on the media / journalists to give us facts, and through these short bursts of information we jump to conclusions about all kinds of things (not just murders). So even after they are found innocent very few of us don’t want to think about that it could actually have been someone else. We have made up our minds, and even if people are found not guilty we believe they did it. But most of the time we were not at the trial, we don’t know all the information, we rely on a third party and in reality what they believe.
In your opinion, do the media have a negative influence on this subject?
Yes. I think a lot of news reporting is underfunded, can not spend sufficient time investigating, are looking for small short bursts of entertainment news, but also want the world to be much simpler than it is. Media and peoples points of view can be very present in reporting.
In New Zealand, is the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” different from the United Kingdom or the United States?
No, it’s all very similar. So with that in mind, I think this sort of thing is happening in both those western societies as well.
The end title card questions the gullibility of the viewer. What is the most important for you? That the viewer doubts the character, or doubts the veracity of the images?
I don’t like to think I am questioning the gullibility of the audience, I feel like I highlight an issue that we should think about. But there are practical reasons for saying that this character is fictious.
Legal, I don’t want anyone to think that it is based on anyone. Or that I have stolen someone’s story – it is common in New Zealand for this be written at the end of any drama.
I am also a documentary maker, and film real people telling their stories and I don’t want to take my reputation as a documentary maker for granted. I believe there should be no doubt that I am highlighting an issue, but also that I have made this character up (he is a pretty funny character, look at all those hats). An example of this, there is another drama film in this festival that claims it is a documentary. When I first saw it I was amazed that they had found that story, that these characters had given them permission to film, it was an incredibly powerful film for me. They were highlighting a very serious issue, showing me something I had never seen, and then to find out it was fake through the espresso interviews, all whilst in the program claiming it was documentary and in other places saying it was a docudrama – I felt sick. I felt like the film maker had abused my trust. Very much like how the media can mislead us. I wanted no one to ever feel like that. I respect my audience, and I feel this is one of the things I am talking about in this film.
Did you envisage this film without that end title card?
Only as joke to my friends, who obviously know my family are alive and well. Never seriously for the wider public.
