Amanda Knox denounces Matt Damon film Stillwater for trying to “exploit” her life
Director Todd McCarthy has said the movie is inspired by Amanda Knox's story, but nobody thought to check with her about it
Film News Matt Damon
The new Tom McCarthy film Stillwater, starring Matt Damon as a man whose daughter has been imprisoned in Europe for a murder she may or may not have committed, isn’t technically based on the story of Amanda Knox, but it is certainly inspired by the story of Amanda Knox. She’s the woman who was wrongfully convicted of murder and imprisoned in Italy for several years, with the authorities and the media vilifying her and framing as a party-obsessed American girl who heartlessly murdered her friend, Meredith Kercher, and then tried to run away, which made it difficult for her to convince anyone to try and find the real killer. It’s largely the same thing that happens in Stillwater, with McCarthy noting in interviews that Knox’s story inspired the idea for the film even if the final product isn’t really about her or her story. Basically, McCarthy has not been shy about saying something along the lines of, “this movie was inspired by a specific real person named Amanda Knox.”
And yet nobody apparently thought to ask Amanda Knox how she felt about any of this. The real Knox has now written a piece for Medium (via IndieWire) in which she ponders whether or not her name and face and story really belong to her or if they can just be used freely by people who want to profit from her life. Knox’s main issue, other than the fact that McCarthy and Damon freely refer to Stillwater as having been inspired by her life even though they’ve never spoken to her, is that this is another instance of the media robbing her of her agency. She became the center of a media frenzy about a murder she didn’t commit, at the expense of the actual person who was murdered and the actual person who killed her, and now her name is being used to promote a movie about the same thing—with all of it happening through no fault of her own.
She still feels like she’s being treated as a character in a sensationalized story instead of a real person, with no regard being given to her right to live a life that isn’t controlled by how the media perceives her. She also notes, through some spoilers for Stillwater, that some of the fictionalized aspects of the Amanda Knox-type character in the movie play into unfair conspiracy theories and criticisms that some people have about her life, which she says “reinforces an image of me as a guilty and untrustworthy person.” As of right now, it doesn’t sound like McCarthy or Damon have responded to any of this.
247 Comments
Well if she didnât want this to happen then she shouldnât have been an innocent victim of Italian police incompetence and corruption, and she shouldnât have been existing in a world where the international press demonizes women to sell papers.
She forfeited these sorts of complaints when she became news for any reason. I mean, Jesus is pissed about that whole Bible thing, but sorry dude youâre news.
I mean becoming news wasnât her idea…
Iâm sure it isnât for most people who make the news. Itâs not like the guys trapped in the mine or the survivors in the Andes or even the war hero or the civil rights champion set out for fame.But sheâs history, and historyâs fair game for art *shrug*
It must be nice to be so cool and above it all
Is it fishing season again?
Fishing with John?
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, wow, to have such a lack of self-awareness…
Yeah, Iâm real sure they are shooting for art with this film.
I can guess tom McCarthy truly believed it, even if you laugh at the same thing. Art is in the eye of the beholder or something fancy ass like that.
Were they not?
Well it ainât high art, but films are art.
People with no empathy are disturbing!
Iâm sure she has empathy.
What the fuck is wrong with you?Â
So if somebody runs over your mom and then they make a movie about it saying it was your momâs fault because sheâs a prostitute, your family has nothing to complain about because she âbecame newsâ?I think you should see somebody.
Now hold on. Are we talking about the Colonelâs prostitute mom getting run over? Because if she hadnât been out hooking on the corner sheâd never have gotten hit by that ice cream truck, and now all these poor kids are traumatized when they should have known she was a lady of the night who looooooved the whole âselling her ass for cash” thing. God, people are soooooooo sensitive to anything these days.
person who replied: thank you for chiming in, and that ice cream truck that hit his mom was also technically her place of business (the cops should have wondered why it was so steamy), but alas, I cannot actually see your comment on this thread even under pending, I can only read a snippet of it in my notifications, sry bro!
Is that what they did here, made a movie about Amanda Knox? Cause thatâs not what the article says.I saw your mom last night, does that count?
If you actually read her article, she notes how often she gets demonized for âmaking herself famousâ, distracting from the actual victim of the case, when none of that had anything to do with any actions on her part, but the authorities and the media. The story COULD have been about a murder in the process of a burglary, but instead, itâs all about her instead of her roommate or the actual murderer because of nothing she actually did or participated in. The guys trapped in the mine WERE ACTUALLY TRAPPED IN THE MINE. The survivors in the Andes ACTUALLY SURVIVED THE ANDES. Sheâs famous literally because sheâs not supposed to be.
And despite all that, dudes still use her story and name to promote their film, continuing the injustice of keeping her in the limelight when she doesnât want to be, and making her story theirs to do with as they please, just like her prosecutors in the Italian government and the media did.
She has VERY reasonable disputes here, despite her utterly complete awareness that she canât put this toothpaste back in the tube. Again, if you read the article, it is precisely why she chose to respond: if she doesnât, it remains everyone elseâs story.
Like seriously? This is beyond victim blaming.Â
Nah. Itâs her name and her life and she can complain all she wants.Â
They didnât use her name, nor does the movie present the story of her life. Reading the article will take you far!
I wasnât talking about the movie. I was responding to your comment about her forfeiting complaints. Try to remember your bullshit.Â
Remember the alamo.
The international press demonizes plenty of men too, more than they demonize women. Donât make it a gender thing.
I mean, almost every work of crime fiction takes inspiration in one way or another from actual events. I donât think anyone is going to look at the film and think itâs trying to be an accurate representation of her experiences. By now there must be a million true crime documentaries about Amanda Knox. Depending on the level of sensationalism, they seem like a more reasonable target.
Targets with shallower pockets.
I mean, itâs cool to be a snarky dipshit online and all, but this is really where you guys plant your flag? That a young woman who is A VICTIM and had her life as she knew it taken away from her is somehow greedy? It canât be due to the fact that sheâs unwittingly been dragged through her trauma again by a major studio release thatâs TOTALLY NOT ABOUT (but inspired by! *wanking motion*) her story?
With all due respect, go fuck yourselves.
Wow, you are an asshole.Â
Sheâs not suing anyone, clown dick
From you, thatâs a badge of honour.
Thanks!
Stick to music Stillwater!Â
Yeah, basically every other Law & Order episode was an obvious reference to a real case (including at least one based on Amanda Knoxâs case).
Iâm pretty sure they even advertised them as “ripped from the headlines.”Â
They absolutely did. âRipped from the headlinesâ was a marketing ploy for law and order for years. Off the top of my head there were episodes about a billionaire star accused of molestation by two young boys and one about a large reality tv religious family in which the eldest son molests his sisters while the parents try to sweep it under the rug and handle it themselves. They also did episodes that were basically direct retellings of the Casey Anthony trial, the JonBonet Ramsey case, I think I remember one that was clearly about the Ray Rice wife-beating incident. I donât know if they still use âripped from the headlinesâ when promoting the episodes, but I know that they did that with the Michael Jackson episode and others.
See also The Good Wife
Yeah but do they constantly say âyo yeah we loosely based this off of ______â in interviews, and have it in basically every headline that talks about the movie? AND (this is the worst one) do they then go and (spoiler for the movie)
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………………………………………ââââ>…………….change the goddamn ending so that sheâs actually guilty? Cause uhhh thatâs really fucked up and shitty.
It really is the admission from the creator that he based it off of her that puts this into shitty territory. When I first saw the trailer, I was confused because it seemed very similar to Knox, but clearly wasnât. Even if he hadnât said it, it would have been an undeniable influence. But at least if he had never mentioned her at all, had demurred whenever the question came up (âWell, I pulled from a lot of different inspirations, but not Knox in particularâ), it would at least keep a level of plausible deniability. Itâs been a few years, maybe most people wouldnât make the connection, and she could just ignore it. But when the director starts talking about you, about how your story was what made him think of this story, how can anyone just let that go?Also, I didnât know that about the ending. Thatâs just extra fucking scummy. I was thinking about seeing this, but now Iâll just pass..
Yes if you don’t like the creative choice of endings it must be a scummy move. Obviously, because you know what is acceptable and what isn’t. Thankfully no one IRL may ever be offended or hurt by a fictional character or storyline, anytime ever in the world. Can not risk that.
Whatâs particularly odd is that the plot of the movie really only requires that his daughter is charged with a murder in a foreign country. Thereâs a million reasons why a young American girl could be abroad that wouldnât be so reminiscent of the Knox case. Instead they used some specific parallels, that unmistakably conjure the Knox case, that really donât further the plot or overall meaning of the film.
âWe decided, âHey, letâs leave the Amanda Knox case behind,ââ McCarthy tells Vanity Fair. âBut let me take this piece of the story â an American woman studying abroad involved in some kind of sensational crime and she ends up in jail â and fictionalize everything around it.âSeems pretty innocuous to me. Heâs open about being inspired by the case, but is otherwise drawing no allusions to Knoxâs specific circumstances (the similarities seem to begin and end with that quote), and instead is using the basic idea as a framework to explore other things.
âIt really is the admission from the creator that he based it off of her that puts this into shitty territory.â
He didnât say it was âbased onâ her story, it was âinspired byâ her story.
You know, the way that Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Deranged, Silence of the Lambs, Three on a Meat Hook, Ed and His Dead Mother and Child of God are all inspired by Ed Gein but are all wildly different films?
The Law and Order series (especially trashy SVU) changes the ending all the time. Many, possibly even most of their âripped from the headlinesâ stories twist it so the innocent IRL is actually guilty and vice versa. I always thought that was pretty fucked up actually, especially when the IRL victim is actually the killer in Law and Orderland.
I donât think thereâs any real danger that this film is going to change anyoneâs mind about Knoxâs actual guilt or innocence. Based on the reviews, it seems like the movie is more focused on the weird Trump country culture clash stuff and the fatherâs relationship with a French woman and her daughterâneither of which has any sort of basis in reality. (From what I remember, Knox is from the West Coast and had a pretty privileged upbringing.)Knox has every right to feel however she wants to about the film, and to publicly protest, and movie viewers have every right to not see the movie because they feel icky about how it was created. But odds are this public back and forth is a win for everyone, leading to increased attention for both the filmmakers and helping to create more interest around Knoxâs professional âactivismâ for the wrongfully accused.
Itâs easy to say that people will understand the difference between the fiction of the film and Knoxâs real life, but thatâs naive. People will be influenced by the filmâs fictions, and it will hurt Knox. The true crime genre is exploitative, by its very nature. People donât like to believe that because it is enjoyable to them and they like to think they are consuming it for noble reasons, but a lot of it is rubbernecking. Iâm totally okay with Amanda Knox, who knows something about all of these issues, questioning what is okay and what is not okay.
âand have it in basically every headline that talks about the movie?âPoint out one single headline, besides article, that references Knox.
Certainly Law & Order has changed the stories so that innocent people end up guilty (their version of the Duke Lacrosse story has the athleteâs very guilty, for example), but while itâs usually pretty obvious what headlines theyâre ripping from, they donât usually go around pointing out the connection in interview and whatnot, as far as I know.I mean, when I watch âTo Die Forâ, I think of Pamela Smart since it was clearly based on that case (I think the author of the book has admitted as such) but I donât recall Gus Van Sant or Nicole Kidman going around making the connection during the press for the movie (and the guilt or innocence of the main character isnât changed from reality).
Sounds like L&O dipped into the Duke lacrosse well a few times. In the L&O:CI version the accuser was lying.
Yeah, they do actually. They just dont get asked it as much as a release for a film does, duh.
This sounds like the TV movie they made about how Bart killed Principal Skinner starring Neil Patrick Harris.Â
Thatâs what makes it INSPIRED BY and not BASED ON, and itâs why the characters have different names than their real-world counterparts and itâs why ITâS FUCKING FICTIONAL.
And YES, Law & Order constantly and consistently changes the actual outcome of the case. Again, ITâS FUCKING FICTION that is INSPIRED BY real life stories.
Is that really something that has become difficult to understand in the three decades that L&O has been around?
Agree about the first part. In fact there will likely be an audience that doesnât even know much about Knox. Then again, Damon is using a well-known story to market a film. He noted the inspiration himself.
I sympathize with her but are we not being hypocritical here? Weâve been talking about The Prince which is Gary Janettiâs Family Guy spin on the British royal family. Do they have a right to their own names? No, because we donât like them, amirite? Kristen Stewart is about to play Princess Diana but who cares because Diana is dead. The Gucci family are not happy with the new biopic about the murder of Maurizio Gucci by his wife but Hey, theyâre rich white people so what does it matter.
True.I recently found out that the Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, was based on lurid stories about real Mormons. So yeah, this sort of fictionalization of historical or newsworthy events is a well-established tradition.
In the article, she calls most of them out. The fact is, the true crime industry is exploitative whether itâs a Lifetime movie or a well-researched podcast. Itâs all about processing peopleâs pain and trauma into titillating entertainment. Dick Wolf of Law & Order is a near billionaire because of it, and legally all he has to do is change some of the details just enough so he doesnât have to pay/consult/deal with the people who inspire his stories. Itâs so normalized, that people will attack Amanda Knox, who knows what it feels like to constantly have her trauma and tragedy ripped from the headlines by strangers who profit, for questioning whether or not any of this is okay. On balance, Iâd rather have ethical people making true crime than the worst exploiters, but itâs okay for Knox to ask the questions she asks.Â
True enough, and most fiction starts as something like this (using some actual event as a launching point) but I can see her point. I mean, theyâve used her name over and over again while talking about the movie and I certainly donât blame her a bit for not having a sense of humor about it.
If nothing else, they shouldâve been much more explicit in emphasizing they were only borrowing the jumping off point and everything else was their own creation.
The problem is that the story in question is about an innocent person whose story was taken away from being taken away from her again, not a criminal who deserves interrogation. She has every right to compare the two experiences, far more than either of us.
It also sounds like you didnât actually read her article, and just the summary here. You should: literally everything you said is ably rebutted in her actual response.
But in this day and age of micro attention spans, how many people know who she is? Is she on Instagram?
As I understand it, sheâs quite foxy and also maybe inclined to murder people.
Seriously what is wrong with you? Youâve been accused of rape havenât you?
The Italian coverage played up the fact that Knox had been nicknamed âFoxy Knoxyâ by one of her US soccer coaches because she started wearing her hair in a ponytail.
I think she has a podcast
If you or I go to the mall on a Tuesday there probably arenât many people talking about Amanda Knox. If youâre actually Amanda Knox I have the feeling people are trying to talk to you about the Amanda Knox case all the time.
Exactly. The whole âcontroversyâ benefits both partiesâprolonging Knoxâs 15 minutes just as sheâs about to fade from public consciousness and increasing interest in her career as a Facebook show host/public speaker/podcaster/professional activist/whatever for anyone who has ever been wrongfully accused even as it increases public awareness of the film itself. Lots of morning news/daytime talk show interviews for everyone.Itâs the sort of thing a more cynical person might suspect was planned out in advance as part of a joint effort by the publicists of both parties.
You should really not be criticizing anyones cynicismÂ
I donât think that I have? But I acknowledge irony is hard to convey/recognize on the Internet.
I can absolutely guarantee you that while Knox may have wanted to be famous, she did not want to be famous *for this*. What a fucked up line of thinking. I sincerely hope that you never experience finding your friendâs raped and murdered corpse, then be accused of murder despite having no motive, then have evidence fabricated against you to link you to the murder, then have your name dragged through the mud by the press in both Italy and the US, then spend 4 years in an Italian jail trying to fight the bogus murder rap, then come home only to have tabloid Paparazzi follow you and your family around.
Like, holy shit, the New York Post reported her attendance of the premier for a documentary about her trial with the headline, âTake a long, hard look at Amanda Knoxâs dopey boyfriendâ more than 2 years AFTER she was acquitted. Despite being found innocent TWICE, the Post is still taking shots at her like she did something wrong. Her family is still trying to pay off the legal fees and travel expenses they incurred to support her during the trial, so I canât really fault her for leaning into the infamy to try and make some cash. And insinuating that a person who was wrongfully imprisoned for a murder she didnât commit isnât sincerely advocating for other people in similar situations is beyond âcynicalâ.
She did write an article for The Atlantic in the last couple of days, but I havenât read it yet…
Even people we think of as not famous or barely famous are often accosted for that one memorable thing they did or their one catchphrase, or because someone thinks theyâre that other character actor. Being on TV for any length of time makes people insanely famous, think about how it must feel when everybody is always looking at you out of the corner of their eye and you donât know if they want to bang you, kill you, rob you, or hug you because you were in that one Burger King commercial five years ago, or hug you because they think you were in that one Greyâs Anatomy episode five years ago and you werenât. If you have any inclination to paranoia it must be wacky. But, I know, weâre not allowed to pretend things like this have any downside.
Alpha Dog is an underrated gem.
Just came back from seeing this. She deserves to be upset, but — and others whoâve watched it will know what I mean — she would be REALLY pissed if she watched til the end.
Cause she fucking DID IT??
Yeah, she has a long twitter thread up about the movie, in which she completely spoils the ending (which I donât blame her for at all, but Iâll put up a big SPOILER WARNING in case people want to see the film and not know).
Apparently, in the movie, the âKnoxâ character ends up being an accessory to the murder after all (something to the effect of, she didnât do it but helped cover it up). As the real Amanda Knox points out, putting that in the movie feeds into all the continuing but false narratives and innuendo that have surrounded her – basically people who say with no evidence âyeah, but she must have been involved SOMEHOWâ when, again, all the evidence shows that she wasnât there when Meredith Kercher was killed, had no connection to the man who killed her, and had no reason to want Kercher harmed.
Oh she has a whole heart breaking twitter thread about it.warning itâs a rough read at times and does spoil the movie but I think itâs also an important read.
In related news:
Are you focusing on the fact that it took him so long to understand that it is wrong (which is more common the older a person is, and he is 50). Or are you referring to the fact that despite his upbringing and age, he is still learning and evolving as a person?
Its a rhetorical question, as I never look back at old articles to see peopleâs responses.. just keep in mind that this same headline has two very reasonable ways to view it.
Do you think Matt Damon uses this slur on set? Do you think he uses it around journalists? Â When heâs whining and dining with movie execs?
That it would even be in his lexicon. Â
Nah
I know you wonât read this, but for the less disingenuous among us, Damon is 3 years older than me, and I always knew what that word meant when it was being hurled at me. Even when I was in single-digit ages.
No shit, genius. He didnt claim ignorance to the actual meaning, just that he didnt consider it wrong because it was such a commonly used term when he was growing up. Which it was. If you actually want to argue that it wasnt an extremely common term that was basically just accepted as a normal and acceptable insult up until fairly recent times, then you are in fact extremely disingenuous.
Sorry, âCranky Messiah,â but Kinja is broken and I canât find your comment defending the use of slurs that mean gay people. I know itâs fun to pretend that âEVERYONEâ in the 80s used it to mean dumb, but that still doesnât explain how people who grew up to be gay knew what the slur meant when they being called it then!
Every time I see a comedy movie from the 80s Iâm amazed at how often one is the F-words for homosexual pops up. To believe that all these people who claim it never meant that while they were hurling it at others were in some kind of vacuum requires a real leap of faith.
âEven when I was in single-digit ages.â
Nice to end your BS story with an absolutely blatant lie.
I live in a smallish town and know only a few gay people and I learned pretty early on it was a gross word I shouldnât use. Matt has been in Hollywood around a lot of gay people for 20+ years. The âdidnât understand it was wrongâ smells like bullshit to me.
Doesnât even have the British excuse so he could pretend he meant a cigarette.
Or meat served in rich gravy.
Maybe he was talking about bundles of wood.
For an ordinary adult, the notion that it took him this goddamn long to figure out how bad that slur is, and the fact that his daughter had to carefully explain it to him, should be a goddamn embarrassment.For someone born and raised in Boston, retiring that slur was probably equivalent to quitting cigarettes cold turkey and he might deserve an extra-large cup of Dunkin for the effort.
Oh man, growing up in the deep South, there was ten years where my name (like the name of every thoughtful boy) WAS âF-g.â Even today I could run through literally 50 iterations and uses of the nameâin that hotbed of toxic, racist, homophobic redneck masculinity, the slurs were like a separate, fully-formed language. I donât believe that Damon only just now figured it out, though I will admit it took me several years of living on the west coast before I finally started to hear the word in its true form.
Itâs going to be very hard to explain to future generations just how normally that word flew around amongst adolescents during the 90s and early 2000s. Â
I know a term that COULD be applied to those wimpy future students learning about the bad words that they are not allowed to say or think anymore…
Iâm sorry, but I literally donât know what âf-gâ is.Â
Iâm sorry, but I literally donât know what âf-gâ is.Â
Itâs whatâs in F-g Newtons.
Iâm sorry, but I literally donât know what âf-gâ is.You genuinely canât figure it out from context? I find that difficult to believe.Maybe this will help:https://variety.com/2021/film/news/matt-damon-f-slur-daughter-1235032326/
That word doesnât end with a âg.â âf-tâ would be correct.Â
Let this song educate you:
You are such a huge fotWorking for me…
Iâm sorry, but I literally donât know what âf-gâ is.A middling John Carpenter movie?
âIn its true formâ? What, they still refer to bundles of sticks that way on the west coast?
I donât know what that means.
Honest question: how old are you? People in their 20’s and younger somehow seem incapable of grasping the fact that things were much different when people Damonâs age were growing up. Nobody batted an eye at that slur, it was one of the most common insults i remember being bandied about whenni was in school, by both men and women. The world has changed a lot in recent years. Villifying someone for using a term that pretty much EVERYONE his age grew up using and that (sadly) wasnt considered “wrong” at the time, and admitting to it and that he is still learning, is… well, dumb. Very dumb.
To reply to the person in the greys (who I canât directly reply to because Kinja only ever seems to get worse) who asked how old I am and if I knew how common this word used to be among children:Iâm 37, born and raised in New England, and gay. I am not in my 20s or younger, I am acutely aware of how much the term was thrown around with particular respect to the Boston area (hence the joke!), and I am also aware that Matt Damon is worldly enough to have been exposed to the notion that some of his childhood words are not okay before 2021. Heâs not just Some Dumb Townie, this isnât 2003, and that word has been a capital-S Slur for a long time, not just an old-timey term thatâs aged out of acceptability and confuses the olds (like trying to convince grandpa that âorientalâ isnât an okay way to refer to people).
Yeah, if he was like âI was still calling people that in 2005, Iâm sorryâ I would be understanding. But, like, the entirety of Trumpâs time in office didnât clue you into a few things??
This raises some real questions about just how meaningful it is to be Harvard educated.Haha, for real though, I wonder if it was his eleven year old daughter who had to teach him that slurs are bad.
In other related news, fuck Amanda Knox, forever and always:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2554600/Stranded-trapped-Amanda-Knox-tells-guilt-falsely-accusing-barman-Meredith-Kerchers-murder-vows-convince-British-students-family-innocence.htmlShe can be both a victim and an ugly, racist American tourist at the same time.
I mean itâs not as though the police have ever coerced an accusation from a suspect. And I mean, weâre going with the Daily Mail as an authority on racism here?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-knox-barman/congolese-bar-owner-says-knox-ruined-his-life-idUSTRE78P3XM20110926
Okay. Not sure what this has to do with Matt Damon saying homophobic slurs though.
Not sure what Matt Damon saying homophobic slurs has to do with Amanda Knox whining that sheâs not getting paid consulted over a fictionalized story.
This is an article about a Matt Damon movie…
Holy shit dude… You just accused someone of being racist, and recognitions actually disagreed with you. That should pretty much tell you how ice-cold your take is on this.
Holy shit dude… thereâs not a lot of complicated analysis that goes into âPrivileged White American Girl blames Black Bar Owner for a murder he didnât commit to take the heat off of herself, fabricating eyewitness evidence that didnât happenâ. But yeah! ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ Totally, my take is ice-cold. Thereâs definitely levels and shades of racism. Like thereâs using the N-word straight up to insult someone. Amanda Knox didnât do that. Amanda Knox also didnât jump right out and say, âThat Black guy that runs the bar I worked at sure is suspicious! You should totally arrest him with no evidence other than he Fit The Description!â Because that would be definitely more racist than what Amanda Knox did. Sure, you can say, âwell whatabout racist police pressureâ, and youâd have somewhat of a point – poor, confused, young, innocent White Girl was just misled into being racist. Or would you? Because that sounds like a load of bullshit to me. Right up there with, âIâm not racist, but I may not have been in my right mind when I was using racist slurs at the bar last night because I was too inebriated to think straight.â Or, how about âI totally am not racist, but I may have been liking Tweets about peaceful ethnic cleansing while I was on Ambien last night.â See, too many people fall into the Amanda Knox was a poor, confused, young, innocent White Girl stereotype. She was a twenty year old grown ass woman, mature enough to be living and working by her own choice in a foreign country while chasing some hot Italian ass. But because no one understands nuance, either youâre a lily-white, virginal victim worthy of a million news stories (Hi Natalee Hollaway!) or youâre a skank whore ritually killing people in weird sex games. Amanda Knox is a victim of police arrogance, incompetence and pride. She also committed an act of pure, racist cowardice, and ruined a Black manâs life because of it. Thinking it was otherwise is to literally say, âBUUUUTTT, we donât really know what was in Amanda Knoxâs HEART when she did it!â And that shitty take can fuck right off, too. Because not only is it our actions that define us, but often times, itâs our actions when the chips are down and real consequences are on the line, that reveal who we really are.Amanda Knox can snivel all she wants about how she âlearned her lessonâ, and sheâs âsorry I offended some people by blaming Lumumbaâ. But those are fucking words. Patrick Lumumba lost two weeks of his life in jail. He lost his livelihood when they closed his bar down. He never worked again in that town. Amanda Knox makes a living on speaking engagements, guest appearances, and other media based on the life experience of being wrongly accused of a crime. What exactly has Amanda Knox done to make it right with Patrick Lumumba, who SHE wrongly accused and has had ZERO of the opportunities that Amanda Knox has had.
So if sheâd accused a Jewish guy would that be anti-Semitic?
Is that your entire takeaway? That if she had wrongly accused a Jewish guy she may or may not have been anti-Semitic?Learn some context, dude, read up on Patrick Lumumba and come back when you have something actually insightful to add.
I read both articles you linked to and I donât remember anything specifically racist about her accusation unless you think the mere fact that heâs black is enough to make it racist, which is where my Jewish comparison came in.
https://www.theroot.com/lets-not-forget-amanda-knoxs-lie-1790866361
I am never going to be mad at someone for demonstrating personal growth, no matter how long it takes them. And since you’re the same miserable, self-righteous piece of dog shit you’ve always been, and show no signs of changing, Matt Damon is still a better person than you’re ever likely to become.
âWhen I realised how wrong it was for me to use that word, I felt like a real re – hang on, my daughterâs trying to get my attention over there.â
Omg he’s a monster we should all boycott and ban and tar and feather and then he’ll REALLY only use words we approve of, that would be awesome. Oh AND we should burn any movie he’s even made prior to this incident because that basically makes you, the viewer, a homophobic hate filled c*nt just for knowing about it and not doing so.Â
We got some chapped asses in the greys tonight, sir
Iâm 50, and I learned this back in the late 1980s despite having lived my entire life in Texas rather than having spent the last several decades in Hollywood.
That reads as if he still thinks âgayâ would be a slur.Like, so long as he doesnât say âfaggotâ itâs OK to be mean about homosexuals?This makes me terribly sad. He seemed like one of the good ones for some reason.
Thereâs every reason for Knox to feel the way she doesâphrasing it as being treated as a character versus a person is particularly apt.
At the same time, this is just the nature of being a public figure, even if you end up as one unintentionally. Knox hasnât exactly been a hermit since the ordeal, sheâs leveraged it for media appearances, shows, and a memoir. I donât think that makes her life âfair gameâ but you donât really have the option to pick and choose the parts of notoriety you want and donât.I think the filmmakers basing a premise on her story and owning up to that while not making it her story is about the best possible option in this scenario; I have far more issues with creative license taken with âtrue storiesâ in Hollywood that regularly besmirch real people for no other reason than screenwriters were lazy and didnât properly read a Wikipedia entry.
While the âpublic figureâ thing generally has some truth, Knox and others have written a lot about how sheâs really had no choice in the matter, because:
1. Her parents went millions of dollars into debt to pay for her legal fights, so she basically had to sell her story and do media appearances just to keep her whole family from being bankrupt, and
2. Sheâs described (including on a recent Twitter thread posted about this movie) how every time sheâs tried to live a normal life out of the spotlight, sheâs been constantly subjected to media people hounding her, obsessed fans/stalkers coming to her jobs, people around her sneaking pictures of her, neighbors making up stories for the tabloids to print, etc.
In short, her case seems like one in which she quite literally canât stay out of the spotlight however much she tries.
Publishing an article about it hasnât helped.
You’re a real piece of shitÂ
Maybe, but before she decided to turn this into a controversy not many people even knew that this movie (which is unlikely to be terribly popular) was even about her and in a way sheâs kind of Streisand Effecting it by making a stink.
If Matt Damon didnât specifically reference her, I would agree. Since he did, I donât think that sheâs really responsible for bringing attention to it. I understand and support her coming forward this way. I donât think she responded to any of the ripped from the headlines shows that reference her story but not her name. I tried to look that up but I can’t find anything except this recent story. I could’ve overlooked it.Â
Once the director brought her up as an influence, she had no real choice in the matter. It might be lose-lose, but at least she made her position clear.Â
The number of people reading all these âAmanda Knox is furious at Stillwaterâ articles is significantly bigger than the number of people who would have read whatever interview the director mentioned that in.
Oh, do you have stats for that? I know what the Streisand effect is, pal. Youâve just repeated your thesis.Lots of people read interviews, and lots of other publications report (See above Re: Matt Damon)on salacious details from interviews so that the people who donât want to spend ten minutes reading interviews can spend a few seconds reading headlines reporting said details. I think Not Another Amanda Knox Movie might have gotten a bit of media attention when the director admitted he was inspired by Amanda Knox.
Judging by the box office for the movie (#5 for the weekend) I think itâs safe to say that the number of people reading random interviews about Stillwater is not very high. But now that thereâs âcontroversyâ in the water all sorts of publications are putting out articles about the âcontroversyâ like the one youâre commenting on now. So if sheâs said nothing the information would be confined to the small subset of people who both read Vanity Fair and who give a shit about Stillwater, but now her name is all over the place and the two of us are arguing about her. Just google the name âAmanda Knoxâ right now under news and youâll see dozens of articles about her âblastingâ Stillwaterâ but if you do a custom range searching only for articles written before her Medium post on 7/29 you donât see a single thing relating to the movie.
Sure, but what about the timeline where she didnât say anything, and then the movie comes out, and a bunch of reviews mention âThis story, inspired by Amanda Knox.âAgain, I understand what the Streisand Effect is. Arguing that more articles are coming out now about her complaining is not really addressing my point that it was a lose-lose situation for her. I paid next to no attention to the whole story as it was happening. In fact, if you had asked me a month ago what the details were, Iâd have said she had in fact killed someone, but somehow got off after years of controversy. I was actually going to go see the movie (I wonât now though), which apparently would have only reinforced my misconceptions. My case might anomalous, but if Knox getting in front of the story gets a few thousand people to decide against seeing the movie (Maybe thatâs why itâs #5?), and reinforces her innocence and her dissatisfaction with being wrongly portrayed in the movie, that might be as good a win as she can eke out. It might even be worth a few hundred articles written about this controversy and dredging the whole thing up again for her. It might also have been avoided initially if the film maker had some sense of decency, and boy isnât it a good thing we donât live in a world where men routinely walk all over women for their own personal gain.
Look, if the movie were being advertised as an Amanda Knox movie and the director was saying âcome see the movie that will tell you all about this Amanda Knox chickâ and her name was all over the advertising, I would see her point. But thatâs not whatâs happening here. Aside form the basic âAmerican locked up abroadâ concept the movie did little to draw attention to its Knox connections outside of a couple not so widely read interviews where the director mentions that that was his starting point before going off in a different direction.In Knoxâs response she more or less conceded that they have a right to make a fictional story along those lines but mostly seems to be angry that the director mentioned her name in interviews about his writing process which… what, does she want him to lie and say âsimilarities to any person living or dead are purely coincidentalâ *wink wink*? Because that basically leaves it to the audience to make that connection themselves which would probably lead to a lot more confusion than an interview in which heâs upfront about his starting point while also pointing out where the two stories diverge. But hereâs the thing, before Knox made a big stink about the movie it was entirely possible for people to go into it not knowing about the connection at all but now that this controversy has erupted Stillwater and Amanda Knox are probably going to be forever linked.Â
*âAmerican locked up abroad for murdering her international friend, with a corrupt government doing everything to put all the blame on her and set the international media against her, playing off true but irrelevant American stereotypes, while her family tries desperately to even communicate with her let alone find her justice.â That old tale.And yes, if the filmmaker really wanted to make this movie, but really didnât want to talk to Knox beforehand, he should absolutely have denied that the story was inspired inspired by her, no matter how obvious the lie was. This is an easy question to answer, because thatâs what Knox said would have been appropriate. They might even have known to keep her name out of it, if anybody had bothered to send her a text.Whatâs strange is that not only do you think that the movie would not be forever linked with her if she hadnât said anything âeven though the filmmaker linked them in a few interviews that only three people in Indiana would ever readâ but that you also seem to think that nobody would make the connection when seeing the movie, if only Knox had never said anything, while also believing that viewers would make the connection if the filmmaker hadnât said anything. Youâre still arguing the Streisand Effect. But tell me, is your opinion of Amanda Knox now worse for her having spoken up? Do you realize that she has been hounded by people for years, even as you and I forgot about her? If youâre trying to argue that she would have been better off not saying anything, you have to do better than, âBut now people are talking about her!â Public perception matters.
I donât think itâs as obvious as you seem to think it is that itâs 100% about her, especially among people who werenât terribly familiar with the story in the first place. Like, as a true crime reader Iâm 90% sure that Gone Girl is based on the Scott Peterson case but you donât hear people going around calling Gone Girl the Scott Peterson movie, largely because most people donât know or care and the people involved in that case didnât go on a self defeating publicity campaign about how angry they are about it. Had they done that it would have caused more attention and the link would be stronger and the name would be far more associated with it than it is.
Well, of course the film isnât 100% about her, since it fabricates an ending where the main character is culpable for a murder, whereas Knox was entirely innocent of murder. But, yeah, it is incredibly obvious that the film is based on her. Take it from me, a person who isnât terribly familiar with her story, but still identified it immediately from the trailer. As a person who is also not very familiar with Scott Peterson, I can say that I would never have guessed from the Gone Girl trailer that the film was about him. Also, people might not call it the Scott Peterson movie, because when the author was asked âHey, is this about Scott Peterson?â She apparently replied, âNo, of course not.âLook, Iâm only one guy, who thought Knox was guilty, and would have continued to think Knox was guilty had I seen the film, but now Iâm not seeing the film, and know that Knox was innocent. Her public intervention has literally changed my mind and my actions, as it probably did for others. My anecdata is not particularly convincing as evidence, but itâs a hell of a lot more worthwhile than you begging the question about a âself-defeating publicity campaign.â So do you in fact think less of her for speaking up? You didnât answer my questions, but it sure sounds like you do.
Gillian Flynn did in fact confess to parallels between Gone Girl and the Peterson case, which you would know if that family had chosen to amplify that into a big media story. Â Do I think less of Knox because of this? I mean, kinda. Not in a huge way or anything, but I donât think she handled this well. More to the point Iâm really sick of the way the entertainment media puts movies through trials by fire in which some bullshit controversy gets conveniently brewed up in the first week and the debate around said controversy becomes the only thing anyone ever says about the movie ever again (see also In the Heights). I think Knox was very aware of this pattern and timed her attack rather intentionally and that if she really wants her story to go away this is probably not going to accomplish that.
Parallels do not equal âinspired by.â Allowing that parallels exist does not necessarily mean you take inspiration from a real life case. From the sources Iâve found about it, the tone Flynn takes when explaining the genesis of her story is entirely different from this one. But even if were the case, and like you say, I did know Gone Girl was âThe Scott Peterson Movieâ because he made a big stink about it, how exactly would that tarnish his reputation? Is there some sort of fundamental difference between Peterson and Knox that might radically alter the motivation in speaking up?I think itâs critical that you do not understand that Knoxâs story hasnât gone away, and that people still have a lot of misconceptions about her. Again, her primary motivation might not be for her story to go away, because for her itâs still happening every day. I think people struggle so hard not to ever be seen as naĂŻve that they callously attribute the worst motivations to every public persona they can, to the point where they lose track of whatâs even supposed to be motivating them to begin with. So whatâs motivating Knox to do this? According to you, sheâs unintentionally calling attention to herself, which is a bad strategy for keeping a low profile. But sheâs also very cunningly using the media for advantage by timing this complaint when the movie is coming out and the director started talking about Amanda Knox in press interviews. This was a bad move on her part, because itâs bringing unwanted attention on her. It was also a good move on her part, because by âputting [this movie] through a trial by fireâ(?), sheâll… Wait, what exactly? If this was a calculated move on Knoxâs part, what is she gaining? Not money, for sure, not off a movie that isnât even based on her and that nobody would have ever made the connection between except me and Nancy Grace. Perhaps she just wanted attention. Women love attention, especially from a bunch of men who think about her and murder in the same thought. Maybe your whole theory is really just facile bullshit. Maybe itâs possible that Knox did control the story to her benefit after all, by making sure this movie doesnât do as well as it might have if she hadnât spoken up, and also that anyone looking up the movie on Wikipedia to engage in some meaningless argument online seven years from now will not come away with a false impression about sources, and will instead see a blurb that very clearly states Knoxâs position on the film. If itâs true that a controversy that get stirred up as a film is released becomes the only thing anyone ever says about the movie again, then I think, âThe movie that makes Amanda Knox look guilty even though she definitely wasnâtâ is probably the definition of her handling this well.
Your lack of empathy sucks, dudeÂ
Just seconding your anecdotal data – I also saw the trailer, thought âoh, is this about that American tourist who got locked up for maybe-murdering her friend?â, and assumed that certain aspects (such as her family background, the implied relationship between the two girls, and ultimately the movieâs take on guilty/not) were loosely based on her. Of course if I really felt like it I could have done some digging and figured out that the character doesnât actually bear any similarity, but, well, I didnât. Which means until reading this article, I had an idea of her in my head that was incorrect and spoke poorly of her. So I totally get why she doesnât want this movie reinforcing/creating certain thought patterns about her.
You seem to be trying to have it both ways. Either the audience wouldnât have known about the connection if Knox hadnât said something about how she feels about being mentioned by the star, director, and most reviews, or they would have been confused by the clear and obvious connection if the star, director, and most reviews hadnât mentioned it.
Hers is a story of not being in control of her story. Repeating that irony as she was again not allowed a modicum of control at all, all in front of the public eye she quite reasonably feels sheâs not allowed to leave, it isnât a sin. Itâs pretty damned human.
You really should re-read her actual response, not the summary here. If you donât come out of that thinking this is a woman knowing EXACTLY how damned if she does and damned if she doesnât she is, I donât know what to tell you.
Is it possible that she got away with murder? That all of the defense of Amanda Knox is misplaced and in a few years will require some kind of apologizing to those same people upset about how she’s been let off the hook? Because you know, sometimes things in court are not fully accurate or truthful, and she might have gotten away with murder and all the defense aimed at “women get railroaded because they are women” seemingly overtakes the “Americans get away with shit because they’re awful Americans”, and if we’re going by the simple legal explanation, OJ is also an innocent and falsely accused and mistreated man.
lol this. For some reason I found myself reading two articles about this movie over the past couple weeks and neither made mention of her. But I did read this now…
Initially, I didnât remember about Amanda Knoxâs incarceration for a 2007 murder in Italy but once the film was being promoted as âinspired by Amanda Knoxâs storyâ, I looked her up and did a deep dive in researching what happened to her. Consequently, I can understand her concern about incorrect perceptions and judgments being formed…particularly because the fictionalized part of the movie is likely the sensationalized ending which could lead people to have undeserved negative thoughts of her character. Thatâs not fair. And that judgement isnât something that she invited into her life (or even profited from because of the movie). I wish the movie Director had contacted her and gotten her permission before the movie was made.
The thing is, the âpublic figureâ thing really has nothing to do with intention or choice.Itâs just an encapsulation of the fairly reasonable idea that you canât expect people NOT to talk about stuff that is in the news. At some point, what might otherwise be private gossip and speculation just becomes so ubiquitious that it isnât possible to ban or moralize against it.
Itâs her story. I think that wanting to be the one who tells it (and receives any profit for that) is perfectly compatible with her being upset when someone else uses her narrative, especially when it changes the status of her involvement in a crime. Yes, McCarthy can make a film based on a public figure if he wants, but reaching out to Knox first would have been the decent thing to do.
Wow, imagine if, after this movie comes out, people get weird and inaccurate ideas about the Amanda Knox case.
Uh, sorry, but no, no one is stealing her âagencyâ more than anyone who ever wrote a fictional story inspired by real world events stole their subjectâs agency. Did Lin Manuel steal Hamiltonâs agency when he made that musical? Sorry Knox, but youâre a historical figure, people are allowed to think and write about you without seeking your permission. Â
So why isnât it just actually about her then?
Artistic license.Also, the movie is ABOUT a fictionalized father.
I donât know, the filmmakers wanted to make a different movie from her life story? Â
Because then they would have to pay her for it. So this is cheaper.
âSo why isnât it just actually about her then?â
Because itâs about a father whose daughter was arrested in a foreign land and heâs trying to get to the bottom of it.
Why isnât it about her? BECAUSE ITâS NOT ABOUT HER.
Hamilton is dead. Do you think Tom Hanks didnât talk to Sully? Can you imagine that if they had talked to Amanda Knox before making this movie, she might have told them, âGee, I really wish you wouldnât,â and that might even be a contributing reason for why they never sent her an email?
As I said elsewhere, I donât know how I feel. This is awful for Knox, but Ava DuVernay didnât care about Trisha Meiliâs story when she made When They See Me.True stories are always going to involve people that don’t want to be involved. I genuinely don’t know what to do about that.
Meili wasnât the main character of that story. I get what youâre saying, and youâre right that it can be a complicated issue, but those two perspectives share very little in common. Knox has a lot more overlap with the Central Park Five than with Meili, and as far as I know, they were consulted for the show. Meili was the sympathetic victim in mediaâs eye, and although I didnât watch it myself, I have a hard time imagining how she might have been painted as the villain in When They See Us.Iâm not even saying that Knox should have ultimate veto power over the story, or that anyone should be able to shut down production on a story they think is about them. But if they had approached her, and she had said no, and they proceeded to make the film anyway, that would be on their conscience. Rather than asking for forgiveness in lieu of permission, theyâd have to make the moral justification for themselves to deliberately ignore her. Maybe that wouldnât make a difference in how they told the story, but I know itâd make me think twice if someone told me âNo, please donât do that.â Now, Matt Damon can just say âAw shucks, my badâ instead of âIâll fucking do it again.â
âMeili wasnât the main character of that story.âDo you think that Matt Damon is playing Amanda Knox???
Meili certainly wasnât the villain in the miniseries; that was the DA (who had a long career fighting for women were victims of abuse). But that doesnât cancel out the abhorrent racism.There’s 3 parties here: the victim, the wrongfully accused, and the perpetrator. I don’t think any of us care about the feelings of murderers or rapists; but i don’t know how to tell these stories while being respectful to the victim and the wrongfully accused.
I would doubly argue that Meili is Knox, because the Central Park Five arenât Knox. The Central Park Five are Patrick Lumumba, who no one bothers to complain isnât getting enough credit on âforeigners getting wrongly accused by incompetent policeâ stories. And that comparison is apt in more ways than one.
Also, being respectful to the victim does not necessarily mean treating the victim as an infallible angel that can do no wrong. Just like taking a woman seriously who accuses someone of sexual assault does not mean believing every word out of her mouth on faith alone. You can respectfully reference Meili as a victim, first of her rapist, and second of police incompetence. And then you can respectfully reference her insistence of the CP5’s guilt and her Theyâre No Angels smearing of them while respectfully going over the reasons why sheâs wrong about them.
I agree with everything you said. I believe that I personally lack the tact and ability to be that respectful, but that it is possible. Thank you for a thought out reply.
âMeili wasnât the main character of that story.â
Do you think Matt FUCKING Damon is playing Amanda Knox? Heâs not. AMANDA KNOX IS NOT THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THIS STORY.
Maybe just because other people have done it doesn’t mean it’s okayÂ
I didn’t say it was. I’m actually a lot closer to saying the Central Park Five shouldn’t be told because, while Meili isn’t the villain, she still believes that they raped her and there’s no way to (correctly) call them innocent while still being respectful to the rape victim. It’s murky and complicated.
Heâs up and down the comments sections with wildly shitty takes. Fuck this guy.Â
Oh noes, someone with a difference of opinion! If only we all thought exactly the same.
*Replies to every single reply*
Is that bad? Teach me, Iâm not savvy about internet comment boards like you.
Huh? Oh, my post wasnât about you.
Itâs like she turned him down for a date and he never got over it.Â
Settle down. No one said you canât have your own opinion. Youâre just weirdly obsessed with Knox. Maybe take a walk or something.
Yeah thatâs a good one, I love that one. Touch grass; etc.
Do you think this movie is about Amanda Knox? Or is it inspired by her story and tells a different story? Sully was about Sully.
Thereâs a big difference when the subject is still alive, unless people are regularly contacting the ghost of Hamilton and saying, âSo you cheated on your wife, huh? Thatâs fucked up.â
Maybe, except Hamilton is about Hamilton and this movie isnât about Amanda Knox, sooo
Found the misogynist
Did Lin Manuel steal Hamiltonâs agency when he made that musical?Hamilton is dead. Amanda Knox isnât.
Says you.
You should read her article. Itâs not as much that they made the movie as the fact that theyâre using her name and image to promote it.
You have a weird boner about this and itâs creepy.Â
All weird boners are creepy, grow up.
lol sheâs allowed to be pissed about it if she wants. I would be.
âShe became the center of a media frenzy about a murderâ
I don’t know how I feel about this. It sucks for her and I feel for her. But it’s too similar to the Central Park Five. The story of a woman who was raped and beaten is now the story of five young men who were falsely accused. I don’t know who has the right to a story that effects multiple people.
Oh she gets very frustrated that articles never talk about the victim or the killer. Most people donât even know their names. Somehow itâs âher storyâ.Aaaaand of course people blame HER for that. Not the shitty media, looking for âan angleâ.
âSimone Biles let people downâ YOURâE A FUCKING MONSTER!âLeave this innocent woman alone who spent years in a foreign prison convicted of a murder she didnât commitâFUCK YOU SHEâS OURS NOW
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the authorâs imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Iâll be honest. TIL that sheâs not guilty and in jail for it. That was what, a decade and some change ago? And wasnât the biggest news story even back then. My bad.
A murderer says what?
What? Wait….
You canât trick me into confessing to the multiple murders Iâve committed that easily!… shit.
whatâs wrong with manslaughter? the fuckinâ PC police? CANâT MEN EVEN LAUGH THESE DAYS
Its complicated as you can’t just copyright your life and prevent inspirations. But true crime as a genre is quite scummy and rarely does it care about the victims. If you want to feel like shit, look up how the Jack the Ripper victims or Elizabeth Short are treated, its pretty disgusting. She also has been through a lot and I understand this is painful. I don’t know what the right answer is but frankly I side with her. She has my sympathy.Â
I donât think thereâs a âright answerâ here. Sheâs not wrong to feel exploited and criticize the filmmakers or just want her voice heard. I feel for her as well and probably wouldnât have gone out of my way to watch this either (but then Iâm not going to the theaters in 2021 anyway).But theyâre not automatically in the wrong if they tell a story inspired by real events (how inspired I canât say, I havenât seen it) and donât seem to have a legal obligation to clear it with her so itâs down to their conscience. I mean maybe the film can exist and be seen and her opinion of it can be heard and thatâs just how itâs going to be.
First I wish the Twitter thread was linked in the article because it explains the situation well. This all reminds me of Black Dahlia depictions. Anyone is free to do so but depicting her as a bisexual prostitute which is a claim based on newspaper lies is kinda shitty. Also her niece is still alive so all this stuff still impacts the family. Its an issue with nuance in other words.
I would say there is a difference between creating art inspired by events and one that is a novel version of those events. This is not meant to be the Amanda Knox story. Itâs meant to be its own story with some similar things happening to a similar character. This is the similar to Citizen Kane and Hearst. Â
Kane is actually a bad example because Orson Welles didn’t make Kane just Hearst. He was a mix of a couple rich powerful men from the late 1800s. The mistress character is really based on Harold McCormicks mistress and not Marion Davis. But most people think the character is Davis and it hurt her career which Welles said he wished didn’t happen. Welles spoke fondly of Davis actually.Â
I know she was supposed to be a good singer. My point is that this movie is not Amanda Knoxâ story. It just includes some facts from her story. It sounds like a large part of it involves the father of the character hanging around in France with a mother and child. I have not read anything about those being part of Amandaâs story.
The problem is always people donât double check to see what a movie makes up. So when you make up a fact it can sometimes take on a life of its own.
But again, this movie is not the Amanda Knox Story. No one going into this film is expecting it to be or should expect it to be. I think itâs likely that the only reason they mention the case at all in press is because some of the elements match her situation and they donât want to get it out of the way. Â
Its not advertised, but its so close in several aspects that a decent amount of people will either pick up on it or hear some review mention its inspired by real events. Look I’m a historian who deals with pirate history so I’m used to expecting people to repeat dumb things from films. Perhaps that and dealing with true crime people has given be a really cynical attitude towards situations like this.
OK, but this is in no way a true crime movie, nor does it purport to be one. Law &Order must have driven you insane over the years as those stories are are much more obvious about it. Â
Iâd argue that in this particular instance (âinspired byâ fictionalized version, as opposed to true crime retelling), there is a helpful fix. All it would have taken is a âhas no relation to real life eventsâ disclaimer. The fact that they apparently didnât even both with that is shocking from a legal perspective, much less a moral one. The danger with this movie is that people watch it, think âoh, itâs about that American tourist who might have murdered her friend,â and assume that various plot points / character elements are accurate. A simple disclaimer would remind people not to make that assumption.Â
You can be inspired by whatever you want, but if youâre going to start throwing the name of a living person around when promoting your film, you should probably make sure you get that personâs story right and donât change the details to make them guilty for something that they didnât do.
âWahhhhhhh! Iâm the REALZ victim! All I did was mack on my boyfriend while whatâs-her-name body was chillinâ in da house! But donât be mad haters âcause Iâm thin, white, and so hot that any real man will paw me at a horrific crime scene.â
Iâd sincerely forgotten she existed until she started complaining about this.
A fictionalized version of your story was made into a film. Something thatâs been done in storytelling forever. Get over it. Â
Counterpoint: no, she doesnât have to get over it.Â
Well, if she wants to adjust to her reality, she actually does have to get over it.I mean, I know itâs âthe thing to doâ for someone to hold a grudge forever over a seemingly endless torrent of perceived âmicroagressionsâ (or whatever you want to call them) but if you want to actually grow as a person you sort of have to take your situation and grow and adapt.  What happened to her sucks/doesnât suck (depends on whether you think she did it). But itâs reality, and you can either stew in your own juices over a frigginâ Matt Damon movie, or you can move on. Most people wouldnât have even known it was based on her story if she hadnât spoken up…her âthingâ was a million years ago (in terms of the publicâs attention span). Iâve heard a lot of interviews with Matt Damon on all the podcasts and whatnot and I donât think he said her name once. Same with the screenwriter. Nobody mentioned Amanda Knox but Amanda Knox, who (incidentally) has a podcast to advertise. Curious.
Kind of ironic that the dude who played Scott Templeton on The Wire is behind this.
Haha, oh man, I thought he looked familiar.
He directed and co-wrote Spotlight, too, which makes this current foray into seemingly sleazy tabloid bullshit even more surprisingâat least for me, anyway.
He directed and co-wrote Spotlight, too, which makes this current foray into seemingly sleazy tabloid bullshit even more surprisingâat least for me, anyway.Which is a shame because The Station Agent and The Visitor were both good films
This article fails to address one pertinent issue of the story: how and why did the director change his name from Todd to Tom in the time between the writing of the subheader and the first line?
Forget it, igotlickfootagain, itâs BarsantiTown.
She didnât try to run away. What are you talking about.
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FWIW The Atlantic has seen it fit to run her article.https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/amanda-knox-stillwater-matt-damon/619628/And I donât think Matt Damon spends that much time choosing his projects to avoid possible sjw issues.
Oh whoops, it turns out you donât have to âcheck withâ anybody to be vaguely inspired by their life story!
whoops, it turns out sheâs not filing a lawsuit, and you donât have to violate the law to be a jerk (see OP)
I think Iâm going to make a movie about a pretty-boy actor named Pat Danom who rode the success of his more talented friend Ken, to become a huge celebrity. I will outright state that it is about Matt Damon, but it kind of isnât. Then wait and see ho long it takes Damonâs lawyers to come after me.
That would be grounds for a lawsuit. Well, from the description of the movie I read, there are zero grounds for a law suit here.
Seriously though, I think I am more disappointed that this isnât an Almost Famous prequel.
Eh, I thought the âCat Personâ situation was a lot more fucked up than this. What happened to Knox was a tragedy and sheâs within her rights to criticize the film for exploiting her and her story…but the filmmakers werenât required to get her permission to make a movie loosely inspired by events that have long since passed into the collective cultural consciousness. âCat Personâ forcefully dragged private peoplesâ private lives into public conversation; Stillwater riffs on a huge, already public scandal that people have been following for years. Knox is rightfully pissed, and it seems to me that the filmmakers should have gone to greater lengths to point out just how loosely they âadaptedâ her story, but I donât think making a fictional movie inspired by the Knox scandal is morally wrong per se.
I thought Spotlight was one of the best film of the â00s, but I have to admit even though I kind of liked his other movies I was surprised by his vault into being apparently a great filmmaker. His other films were competent but self-indulgent with severe indiemopeytwee-itis. I am eager to see this to see if that is the case or if tSpotlight was just not fumbling a great script (that was, indeed, very scripty, and which in credit he co-wrote [with a guy who wrote for Fringe(!) a lot]). My worry is that this movie is (a) trumpersploitation like Hillbilly Elegy, pretending there will ever be a place in the civilized world for trumpers and that, especially in Europe, anybody would even talk to them, (b) additionally so because excusing years of prosecutorial misconduct and media persecution (two of trumpersâ favorite things when used against any minority) by making Knox a murdering lezzie. I do plan to see it to find out.
It tends to be rather quickly forgotten that McCarthy directed The Cobbler â about which Nathan Rabin had one or two things to say in this very parish â merely the year before Spotlight. Thereâs definitely an up-and-down element to his career.Â
I just read the Wikipedia plot of The Cobbler and…I think I need to lie down. I feel a little like when the edibles kick in and you ate a full brownie thinking âeh whatâs another bite or two?â
Yeah that was… wow. If I wasnât already sitting down…
Between this, helping to kill a sexual assault story on his buddy Harvey Weinstein, having really shitting comments about poor âmenâ in the Me Too era (and having to drudge out the âI have daughters!â defense), and the âF*gâ language…. it sure seems like Matt Damon is kind of an asshole.
I remember once I walked into this bar that used to be in Manhattan called The Cedars. Willem de Kooning used to have his studio across the street, lots of that crowd (alcoholics, I mean đ ) used to go there. Closed forever ago. Not amazing but kind of a landmark.  Anyway I walk in and Matt Damon is sitting at a large table/half-booth so that the second everybody walks in the door they are looking right at him. He gives every person who walks through the door this kind of âyouâre not imagining it, youâre looking directly at Matt Damonâ look…which was a very not-NYC thing to do. Anyway, I kind of got that idea then.Iâve heard a much funnier Marky Mark story about what doofus he is when people donât pay attention to him. Getting the feeling these Mass people should have a general nickname.
Never heard the term âMassholeâ before now?Sorry if I ruined a joke but I never know when I legit run into a pop knowledge gap here.
Funny how these days Ben comes off as the better of the two.
Ben definitely pulled a Prince Harry on us.Â
I look forward to her review
Whatever the full, deeper facts are in Ms. Knoxâs case, it certainly helped in terms of the ongoing publicity that sheâs young, white and attractive. Not so much for the black fellow who was convicted.
Also spare a thought for Meredith Kercherâs family who have had all this dragged back up for them, again.Not mentioned in the article or the comments as far as I can tell and she died young and her family still donât have the truth of what happened to her.
Do you not believe Rudy Guede did it?
Not saying that necessarily, just that theyâve never got the full truth of how she died and who was or wasnât involved and also itâs a fairly recent murder so I think itâs deeply tacky to make a film about it.
The awkward thing about her idea for a Matt Damon movie doesnât need to be far from the truth. An actor who gets a shot at fame thanks to the help of a friend finds himself in a position where he keeps burying the friendâs misdeeds, ignoring the victims all the while. Not even that fictionalized (Damon and Affleck were both involved in Weinsteinâs coverups).
Since she may have some culpability in her roommates death, in fact she may have been responsible for it then I could really care less what she thinks
Yes, itâs based on her experiences to be legally free from being sued–duh.