The Jinx changed the way true crime documentaries worked. A shocking end and one of the more honest interviews that Robert Durst ever gave, the documentary’s ending left us wondering what was going to happen to Durst next. And it shocked the filmmakers, too.
When director Andrew Jarecki and executive producer Zac Stuart-Pontier heard Robert Durst say, “Killed them all, of course,” while unknowingly wearing a mic in the bathroom, everything changed. And now, as we are gearing up for the release of The Jinx – Part Two, we’re seeing exactly how that confession affected Jarecki and Stuart-Pontier.
During a press conference for the series, as reported on by The Hollywood Reporter, Jarecki and Stuart-Pontier talked about the evidence that they had found from Durst prior to finding the recording of his confession. Editor Shelby Siegel discovered the bathroom confession that shocked the world after the fact. Siegl and Stuart-Pontier heard the audio before Jarecki did, and their reaction to the confession is, in a lot of ways, how the rest of us reacted to it.
“I still remember my heart racing and [Jarecki] taking out the letter and walking [Durst] through it. And I’m just on the edge of my seat. And as I’m watching it, the camera that I’m watching cuts off and right when it cuts off, the audio continues. And then, I hear the door open, and then I hear ‘There it is you’re caught,’ and I just scream,” Siegel said.
Jarecki, when told about the audio, knew that it was what The Jinx was from the beginning: “The whole idea of, you know, that we’ve been talking about this film as a confession and it’s always been figurative. Now it’s literal.”
It made sense that the production side of things could not easily find the audio, and its existence wasn’t apparent right away. “So the interview was over. Bob was still wearing his microphone, Andrew’s still wearing his microphone. And the sound’s still being recorded,” Stuart-Pontier explained. “But we’re all buzzing about in a loud room as Bob gets up and goes into the bathroom. So Bob’s in there and he’s talking to himself really quietly and the two of their microphones are smashed together on different tracks but in the same recording,” he says. They play the clip in the podcast, so listeners can hear for themselves. “Once Andrew’s audio got turned off, we could hear just Bob by himself in the bathroom.”
Siegel went on to talk about the emotions the room felt when they heard the now infamous confession from Durst. “When he said, ‘Killed them all of course,’ I mean, again we screamed, I’m pretty sure I squeezed Zac’s hand. Like it was, it was incredible. It felt like it was impossible that that’s what he was saying.”
It is just the audio of Durst. He was in the bathroom at the time of the recording and so you cannot see him in it but Stuart-Pontier has a vision of what Durst looked like. “I always imagine that he’s looking at himself. That he’s standing there in the bathroom. He just, like, washed his hands, he splashed water on his face. And he’s looking at himself. And he’s saying that to himself. It’s a powerful thing. I mean, he’s like, looks at himself in the mirror and says, ‘You’re a murderer.’”
(featured image: Max)
