Making Manson: We're still listening to his name
the true crime that's worth your time
The crime
I assume I don't have to go over the particulars of August 8-10, 1969 yet again. We do apparently have some reason to doubt the culpability of Charles Milles Manson, per…
The story
…Making Manson, Peacock's recent three-part original directed by Billie Mintz (Jesus Town, USA; that Selena/Yolanda doc from earlier this year).
[full review from SDB is here; to get all reviews IN full in your inbox, grab a paid sub today!
The Making Manson trailer made much of the idea that the tapes at the project's center – recorded over many years by autograph hustler turned Manson friend John Michael Jones – would explode decades of received wisdom about Charles Manson's role in the murders of seven people.
I hope you're sitting down, but: this does not occur.
What does come to pass is the sort of highly watchable, shaggily ambitious three hours that has, IMO, become Peacock's true-crime "brand" over the last few years. Some work better (Kings From Queens) than others (Face to Face with Scott Peterson), but the ones that don't work as well usually have some new angle or exclusive material, and a sincere belief in the interest/value of their take on the case in question. They just don't always know where their own story is, and that's the case with Making Manson.
As noted, MM takes years and years of recorded conversations between Charles Manson and Jones as its starting point, and it's a great starting point – in theory. Jones, who's in recovery (and credits Manson with focusing him up in that regard), first reached out to Manson in an effort to cadge a highly prized autograph; the friendship moved to phone calls, recorded at least partly at Manson's behest.
In practice, though, the graphics in MM would have viewers believe Jones has hundreds of tapes, labeled by topic…but doesn't really specify the exact number or breadth of the recordings, or what percentage of them we hear, and doesn't chyron or otherwise note conversations' chronology. Viewers need more context for what Manson is telling Jones, and when.
And if there really is this massive trove of circle-of-trust information, MM might have considered a different structure to convey it properly. It's unfair to judge a docuseries for what it isn't, but Making Manson often shows key figures or Manson intimates – Gregg Jakobson, a producer and associate of Terry Melcher's; Manson "girls" Catherine "Gypsy" Share and Dianne "Snake" Lake; former Manson cellies; Ivor Davis, author of genre rarity 5 to die* – listening to, or purporting to listen to, snippets of the tapes. But the series doesn't settle into that; I'd have liked to see, for example, an entire tape or series or pertinent sections run back for Share, or for one of the profilers, or for Jakobson, for a more organized, formal fact-check.
*that book, a pricy prize that I've stocked and resold dozens of times since starting Exhibit B., isn't in stock just at the minute – and neither is Helter Skelter, which also bounces right out the door no matter how grungy the copy – but I do have other case materials available, and there's a solid sale on at the shop rn
I'd have liked just as much for Making Manson to focus on Davis and the AP's Linda Deutsch – to cut between Manson's assertions (which aren't without merit) that Vincent Bugliosi leveraged the Helter Skelter stuff to convict Manson in the media, and for Davis and Deutsch to talk about what it was like to cover the case at the time, to marinate in the madness in the bullpen all day, to talk with editors about the running story.
As it is, the "Bugliosi was compromised" angle doesn't come up until the final episode. The conclusion that, while Manson may have had a point about Bugliosi and/or the "straight establishment" sacrificing him for the comfort of the silent majority or whatever, Manson also was a transactional scumbag who knew full well how to order hits without using words that made him criminally liable? Also saved until the third episode.
I live in the world and I understand how TV docs are pitched and sold here in 2024 – and the way Mintz sets up the concept that more than one thing can be true about the way the Manson murders got prosecuted is actually nicely done. At the same time, MM had all these tapes, access to all these case figures who really aren't getting any younger, and more than one legit new "in" to a story that wouldn't seem to have any left.
With all of that said, while Making Manson isn't a must, it isn't a waste, either. Superfluous and goofy re-enactments are outweighed by Deutsch's "this fucking guy" faces; the interviewees give genuine insight from various different parts of the Manson timeline. Yeah, it's a little distracting when you realize that a scripted version of MM would have to cast Vince Vaughn as Jones and Mädchen Amick as Catherine Share, and you have seen a lot of the photo assets before…but it's got some fresh footage too.
And it does raise the kinds of questions that preoccupy us around here about the role of the true-crime industrial complex in "heritage" cases, the chasm between a fair hearing and a good story, and whom we should look to to tell true-crime stories. John Michael Jones is kind of like Peacock in in that way; he's all over the place, but he got intel nobody else did, and that's not nothing. - SDB