JEFF HUTCHENS INTERVIEW
RELIVING IT Spanning archival footage, interviews and recreations, Hutchens strived for a consistent look throughout the three-part Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes series
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C onversations with a Killer The Charles Manson Tapes is the latest in a long line of documentaries to focus a lens on the murders committed by the Manson Family. Opening with grainy archival footage of Los Angeles and the voice of Jerry De Rosa - one of the first officers on the scene after the murders of Sharon Tate and four others – it
moves between recordings of Manson in prison, recreations and interviews with journalists, law enforcement and the women who became part of his orbit. With a well-trodden story like this, the big challenge was to find a new perspective, says cinematographer Jeff Hutchens. For director Joe Berlinger, that meant looking beyond the familiar mythology surrounding Manson.
“I think a lot of people know the ‘Helter Skelter’ race war theory, but when you look at the facts and you talk to people who were involved, you realise this was just them making – and I don’t mean this in a flippant way – a mistake and then compounding that with more mistakes through this drug-addled, disconnected understanding of reality and what their choices would lead to,” Hutchens says.
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