Tiger of the Week: Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki ’85

Andrew Jarecki ’85 has devoted much of his filmmaking career to stories of crime and deception, with credits that include the 2003 Oscar-nominated documentary Capturing the Friedmans and the 2010 fictional drama All Good Things. The latter was inspired by the story of accused murderer and real-estate scion Robert Durst, who takes center stage in Jarecki’s new project, The Jinx, a six-part documentary series that debuted on HBO earlier this month.

Vox.com hailed the documentary’s complexity and Jarecki’s technique of “gently withering away our self-certain narratives.” The Wall Street Journal called the series “an unusual hybrid” — an extensive investigative reporting project and a deep character study that humanizes Durst, who sat for 20 hours of interviews with Jarecki. And Esquire summarized its take with a question about the filmmaker: “Why does this man keep making us relate to psychopaths?”

That was actually the title of the Esquire Q&A, not a question in the piece. But Jarecki did provide an answer of sorts. “I’m always skeptical when somebody says that another person is evil,” he told the magazine. “I think it’s an excuse to separate ourselves and to say, ‘Well, I can’t even conceive of the possibility that I could be capable of such things, because that person is “evil.”’ But the truth is all people do strange things.”

Jarecki will be on campus for a Feb. 20 event that includes a screening of the first two episodes of The Jinx and a conversation with the director and producer.