For journalists, getting a good interview is like hitting the lottery – without the promise of wealth. An interview can be good because it’s with an entertaining subject, but that alone won’t make for fascinating, informative reporting. The subject must also accommodate your questions. If it’s all “yes,” “no,” and “no comment,” you’ve got a heck of a task before you. Can you change its direction and the nature of the responses, by developing, even quickly, a rapport with the person you’re speaking to? Can you, or should you, feed him lines, plant seeds to get him to think about things in a new light, so that his answers are more developed, better articulated? In the end, is it useful to your story or segment?
A novice reporter arrives to the interview with questions and may follow them strictly, having not yet trained herself or been trained to listen for clues in a response that might otherwise lead to an excellent follow-up question. But to get the “money” quote, you’ve got to be on the ball. If you hear your interviewee say “as I said before” a couple of times, you need to wake up – because you might be missing really great material in anticipation of asking your next question.
There’s some debate now about the timeline of when Andrew Jarecki or his team, in developing the HBO documentary “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” began looping law enforcement in to what they were working on; whether or not Durst’s seeming confession at the end of the final episode, recorded when he’d forgotten he was still wearing his microphone, will be admissible in trial; and if Jarecki inappropriately influenced the Durst investigation by wielding “evidence” in the interview. Most of the buzz is about the aforementioned recording of Durst babbling in the bathroom, after the interview has concluded, wherein he states, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” But the last few moments of the actual interview beforehand, when Durst is well aware of the camera’s eye, are far more compelling.
As documented in “The Jinx,” Jarecki prepares for his final interview with Durst over the course of several production meetings. Jarecki has obtained a letter allegedly written by Durst to Susan Berman before her murder. The bold letters on the envelope, as even someone untrained in handwriting analysis can detect, is eerily similar to those on an anonymous letter sent to the “Beverley [sic] Hills Police” indicating the whereabouts of Berman’s body.
Before Durst confirms his availability to be interviewed again, Jarecki nuances the last couple of questions, bouncing ideas on specific technique off of colleagues. They discuss the various potential ways that Durst could respond or react to being shown his own handwriting and how Jarecki would continue with questioning accordingly. Still, there is little to prepare the viewer for the brilliant and discreet method Jarecki eventually employs in asking those last questions. Though they are inherently confrontational, even threatening in their implication, Jarecki’s touch is a soft one. He looks at the paper he’s showing Durst, rather than into Durst’s eyes. His hand shakes almost imperceptibly, and he scrutinizes the piece of paper as if he, rather than Durst, is the one being forced to reckon with his past. Indeed, a good investigative journalist — much like an effective criminal investigator — in conducting an interview or a series of interviews, will harness interpersonal skills that could make him sympathetic, or at least appear to be sympathetic, to the subject he’s interviewing.
The last question is about whether Durst himself can actually tell the difference between the two handwriting samples when they are placed side by side. And Robert Durst answers simply — that he cannot. It is a riveting moment, more stunning even than the purported “confession” that comes next.
If Durst doesn’t spend the rest of his life in jail as a result of the evidence that came out in “The Jinx,” Andrew Jarecki nonetheless created an incredible specimen of both documentary filmmaking and investigative reporting. That interview, like Durst himself, is a real piece of work.
