Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

2003 "The 2002 Interviews."
7.1| 1h29m| R| en| More Info
Released: 09 September 2003 Released
Producted By: Lafayette Films
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.

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Director

Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill

Production Companies

Lafayette Films

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Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer Audience Reviews

Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
Nonureva Really Surprised!
Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
prelude-64123 OK, documentary. Nick Bloomfield had more sympathy for a serial killer than the people that she killed. Yes, Aileen had a horrible life, but still does not give her an excuse to kill innocent people. Aileen said outrages things to Nick because she knew she could manipulate him and he bought it hook, line, and sinker. Aileen had Nick wrapped around her little finger because he believed her lies and every story that she told him. Very bias documentary in favor of a serial killer.
jzappa Nick Broomfield, a reflexive filmmaker, using a minimum crew, grabs the title's famed personality and important political context in this film, which was to be the peak of his observations on the filmmaker as accomplice and his original documentary on Aileen Wuornos is introduced as evidence during a new trial depicted in this one, he himself called as a witness. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer comes to stand, very alarmingly, as the final wailings from a woman struggling to battle her own commodification. Not even Charlize Theron's striking portrayal of the accused can rival the entrancing real thing, whose premeditated admissions of regret hardly mask her cancerous rage at a life span of abuse, oppression, exploitation and neglect.A poignant examination of a destroyed and atrophied life and an inarguable denunciation of the death penalty and its supporters, this film is a major paradigm shift. After over a decade on death row, Wuornos, who persistently claimed self-defense from rape by her seven victims, upturned her initial testimony, saying that she committed the murders and wanted to atone with God. Broomfield's camera, at one point, keeps rolling unbeknownst to Wuornos, and she comes clean to the documentarian that she could not carry on her death row vigil and just wants it all to be over. Jeb Bush signed the execution order to grant her wish, claiming it the moral and correct thing to do.Broomfield and his collaborator Joan Churchill, using Wuornos' past as a background, cement a dissertation that negates the pro-death penalty case made by its advocates, most significantly Jeb Bush who wants Florida to be more like Texas when it comes to killing convicts. The documentarians grill this negligence for human life and cite the 100 or more cases where a death row inmate was released as innocent. This should be enough to abolish the barbarity. Link this affirmation with the barefaced, obvious and palpable proof of Aileen's unstable state of mind.Again, the power of the film comes from its merging of the angry political framework with its unspeakable personal strife. Broomfield resolutely uses his camera to show the aggrieved, bewildered mental state of his subject. He pins down her history, supplying abundant verification for her present state. The media spectacle that envelops death row as Aileen's execution approaches exposes the freak show that cultivated this unfortunate woman. After Aileen's death is broadcast, the statement made to the press details her last words, incoherence about Jesus and spaceships.To most people, the proof of the senses is generally reliable. We say seeing's believing. If someone asks, "How do you know someone's in the bathroom?" it's sufficient to say, "Because I saw and heard them." Consistent with the conventions of day-to-day life, an assertion's verified if we can refer to some sense encounter as proof of it. But the senses are vulnerable, exposed. Even a more internally unfailing practice may not match with any truth. Historical fact and deduction may all be coherent, but maybe things didn't occur that way. You could even say science and mathematics, while making purely logical sense, may not illustrate truth at all. How many detective stories involve evidence clearly pointing to a character who turns out to be innocent after all? Vice versa? Perhaps the most telling moment of the film is when Broomfield has to pretend the camera is off for Aileen to say something, something very distressing that may or may not be the truth, but to her, it's gospel.
BreanneB This documentary was the stupid most disturbing thing I have ever seen in my life. Nick Broomfield is totally out of his mind when he tries to fight for Aileen. There is no point to it, she was an evil person who would kill again, so she's better off dead.Dawn Botkins is just as much insane as Aileen is. She wants to be loyal to a vicious serial killer. I'm glad Aileen got exactly what she deserved. I give this movie no stars at all. It is just absolutely stupid.Hey one question too, Whatever happened to Tyria Moore?She did the right thing by helping the prosecution sent Aileen to the lethal injection table.
HereComesJean I saw monster last year, and tonight I just saw this documentary. Wow. There is so much more to this woman. Charlize Theron did a good job portraying Aileen, for a glamorous Hollywood actress of flawless beauty--of course it took pounds of added weight and makeup. But the real Aileen isn't as grotesque as Charlize looks in the movie--really. There is a certain charm about the real life woman that I saw in this doc. And a lot more anger.In this doc, we see the woman laugh and joke, she is quite playful at times. But then you look at her eyes change when she talks about her life and you can the whites and it is frightening. And sad. And raw, emotionally powerful. The real life woman she loved betrayed her. And another thing, Charlize has a deep voice, while the real Aileen has a high pitched shrilly voice. The real Aileen seems a lot crazier, a lot angrier. Like that girl in Freeway, a movie I just saw last night. Especially in the scene where she gets picked up and robs the john, and she says, "Cause I'm pissd off and the world owes me." Definitely the same kind of crazed anger and hate. Raw. That's all I have to say.