SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
"Zodiac Killer Project" is a documentary about a documentary that never got to be made. Charlie Shackleton tried to buy the rights to a memoir that explored a theory about who might have murdered five people in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1968 and '69. But when the film deal fell apart, Shackleton still found a way to use all his B-roll of empty rooms, the sinister twangs of stringed instruments, shots of swain, overhead lamps, smoldering cigarettes and spent shell casings to tell us about the documentary he maybe would have made.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT")
CHARLIE SHACKLETON: If we'd made the film, there would have been a car here. And it would have been a California Highway Patrol car, but era-appropriate. So like a 1960s black cruiser with a white door. This would have all been reenactment, obviously. It's how all these things tend to start now. Like, everything's got to have that sort of rhythm of drama, even when it's a documentary.
SIMON: Charlie Shackleton joins us now from our studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
SHACKLETON: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: You wanted the rights to a book written by Lyndon E. Lafferty, a retired California Highway Patrol officer. (Laughter) Why did you go ahead and make this kind of film without the rights?
SHACKLETON: Well, I think - I mean, you know, I've worked in documentary for about 10 years now, and it's certainly not the first time I've had a film fall apart at the first hurdle. But for whatever reason, this one I really couldn't get out of my head. I found myself, you know, just hanging out with friends back in London and describing to them almost beat by beat these scenes that I'd imagined for this documentary that I would never now get to make. And at a certain point, that started to seem like an interesting subject for film itself, you know, that feeling of creative frustration, of a creative dream that could never be realized.
SIMON: You lead us through one technique after another in the making of what I'll call true crime so-called documentaries. Please identify a few for us.
SHACKLETON: (Laughter) Yeah, I mean, there's countless, aren't there? You referenced one in your intro, the swinging overhead lamp, you know, of the interrogation scene. And that was one that it was only really in the voiceover booth recording the narration for this film, as that image came to my mind that suddenly I could see the lamp swinging, and it seemed so self-evident that it would be swinging. But in that moment, I realized I had no idea why, what could have caused it to be swinging in the midst of this police interrogation.
SIMON: I did not quite understand until seeing this documentary that serial killers and accused serial killers have three names. And I was skeptical at first, but I've covered a few cases, and you're absolutely right. They do have three names. Why?
SHACKLETON: I mean, so, apparently, the reason that they always seem to reliably have three names is that news reporters say the middle name quite pointedly, so that they're not confused for anyone else who has the same first and second name. You know, if you're a serial killer who's called John Smith, you don't want every other John Smith in the country to suddenly be thought of negatively. So you say, you know, John William Smith or whatever it might be. But, yeah, as a result, the second you say someone's middle name, suddenly they sound like a serial killer. It almost kind of brings with it the association.
SIMON: Yeah. And every community that's the scene of a true crime documentary are innocent-seeming places - am I right? - until something happens.
SHACKLETON: Yeah. I mean, this is the strange thing. Like, I had, you know, read plenty about the Zodiac Killer case before I ever went to Vallejo in California, where some of its key events took place. And having read all of those accounts, I almost expected to see the dark clouds forming overhead. But, of course, these are just ordinary places. So I think a certain amount of that darkness and foreboding has to be superimposed.
SIMON: Now, had you got your chance to make this film, you would have shown the library as the police station. Why would that be OK?
SHACKLETON: Well, I mean, when you're shooting reenactments for documentary, you're already kind of stepping into the realm of fiction to some extent, obviously, and having places and people and objects stand in for things that aren't the literal thing. I think what's interesting about the ethics of true crime is how those sorts of fairly minor distortions can fairly easily give way to much more serious ones. And that's something that the film tries to grapple with is where you draw that line and how tempting it becomes to push it ever further.
SIMON: I have watched true crime documentaries with our daughters. A lot of them, if not almost all of them, wind up with, finally, you see pictures of the victims. What are filmmakers trying to say there?
SHACKLETON: Well, I think they're trying to remind you that that's what we're doing here, you know, that that's why true crime exists is to pay tribute to the victims or do justice to the victims, seek closure for their families. And I think that while that can be certainly true and that a lot of filmmakers go into this genre with the best intentions, often people's experience of it as something quite sensational, quite gruesome, doesn't necessarily feel like it's in service of the victims. And so with a cynical eye, I think sometimes those moments where you're quite overtly reminded of the victims is the genre sort of acknowledging that maybe it's all too easy to forget.
SIMON: Did you once make a 10-hour movie called "Paint Drying"?
SHACKLETON: (Laughter) I did. Ten years ago now, almost exactly, I made a 10-hour film of white paint drying on a brick wall, which I made as a sort of petty act of protest against the British film censor board. If you want to release a film in Britain, you have to pay the censor board to watch it. And so I thought I would reverse the equation and force them to watch something that they didn't necessarily want to.
SIMON: (Laughter) Did they make some kind of ruling at the end?
SHACKLETON: They did. I got my certificate. I got a U certificate for universal - no material likely to offend or harm. So the film can now be legally exhibited in British cinemas, although anyone has yet to take me up on the offer.
SIMON: But I can't see it on a streaming service now, can I?
SHACKLETON: No, sadly not, but, you know, only for lack of offers. If Netflix wants to pick it up, they're more than welcome to.
SIMON: Well, Charlie Shackleton's new documentary "Zodiac Killer Project" is in theaters right now. Thanks very much for being with us.
SHACKLETON: Thanks so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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