Manhunt - General Discussion

[surreysmum]

I didn't catch the series, so I suppose I'm being inappropriate pointing this here. But the thread title reminded me there's a forthcoming movie starring one of my favourite actors, Viggo Mortensen (as the detective, not the Unabomber). It was announced last May and will be made in 2018. Here's one of the many announcements:

https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2017/05/viggo-mortensen-to-hunt-the-unabomber/

Anybody besides me excited for this? Would it be useful to try to hunt down the TV series for compare-and-contrast? Is there a particular book on the case that's authoritative?

[SusanSunflower]

so, did anyone else - besides me -- think that the search warrant should have been thrown out?  based on an inverted aphorism?  that I'm pretty sure I've heard both ways throughout my life (it's like wanting to spend your tax refund on fun stuff, but wanting swearing you're going to either add it to your savings or pay off bills)... get people talking about what "pride goeth before the fall" some time. 

I thought this was very well done (even as I agree with many criticism about the pedestrian domestic drama and the too-good-to-be-true hero, who I read as being portrayed as almost-autistic-spectrum clueless ... not a savant, just, like Ted, really really bad at intimacy and compartmentalization, more comfortable obsessing over minutia that breaking the "flow" and being present for his family. 

Extended intense concentration can get you higher ... been there/done that ... (see  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) ... 

I found myself curious as to his continuing relationship with the FBI after they threw away his work and denigrated his character ... like all "old-timers" do ... still he was still drawing a salary.  For balance it would have been good to see him working effectively with other teams. 

I suspect few FBI guys bothered with the manifesto ... it's hard-going and has little to nothing to add to why the author sent all those bombs ... but then neither, did the series, except, some vague random reference to a desire to be listened to and to get published ... (a premise less than convincing as his bombs undermined his thesis being treated "seriously" rather than the product of a diseased mind -- serial killer/mad bomber/creep/crazy). 

I wished there were more Bettany/Ted to portray his actual level of capacity for socialization ... was he delusional? was he paranoid schizophrenic? what was his relationship to the librarian and her son -- ongoing, caring, sporadic, mentoring, dunno?  

Worthington expanded his role beyond cardboard cut out ... but not far enough ... I will look for him in the future but, oddly, I rather wished they had cast Dominic West, who he kept -- again and again -- reminding me ... I wish him well, but the 3-D really didn't hold. 

I'm glad they left out speculation about sexuality ... because what many today may not recognize is that waaaay-back-then ideas like "staying pure" and abstaining from sex to hone your (more important) intellectual/spiritual powers were pretty common.  Nothing I remember about his religious upbringing also.  Older than me, but that sort of platonic same-sex friend was not necessarily latent same-sex attraction, as a "safe" companion who -- unlike girls -- would not distract a young man or woman from "being all that you can be" ... boys and girls did not mingle comfortably and for Ted being at least 2 years younger than his classmates -- his dating prospects were dismal.  Some folks take up long distance running, dungeon and dragons or video gaming. 

Edited October 24, 2017 by SusanSunflower

[Sharpie66]

I recently binge-watched this. The standout was Paul Bettany, of course, although I spent the entirety of her appearance on screen trying to figure out why the actress who played the FBI agent on the task force was so familiar. I had to look her up to find out that was Keisha Castle-Hughes, from Whale Rider! I haven’t seen her in years, so it was nice knowing she is still acting.

[pennben]

On 10/24/2017 at 6:16 PM, SusanSunflower said:

so, did anyone else - besides me -- think that the search warrant should have been thrown out?  based on an inverted aphorism?  that I'm pretty sure I've heard both ways throughout my life (it's like wanting to spend your tax refund on fun stuff, but wanting swearing you're going to either add it to your savings or pay off bills)... get people talking about what "pride goeth before the fall" some time. 

I thought this was very well done (even as I agree with many criticism about the pedestrian domestic drama and the too-good-to-be-true hero, who I read as being portrayed as almost-autistic-spectrum clueless ... not a savant, just, like Ted, really really bad at intimacy and compartmentalization, more comfortable obsessing over minutia that breaking the "flow" and being present for his family. 

Extended intense concentration can get you higher ... been there/done that ... (see  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) ... 

I found myself curious as to his continuing relationship with the FBI after they threw away his work and denigrated his character ... like all "old-timers" do ... still he was still drawing a salary.  For balance it would have been good to see him working effectively with other teams. 

I suspect few FBI guys bothered with the manifesto ... it's hard-going and has little to nothing to add to why the author sent all those bombs ... but then neither, did the series, except, some vague random reference to a desire to be listened to and to get published ... (a premise less than convincing as his bombs undermined his thesis being treated "seriously" rather than the product of a diseased mind -- serial killer/mad bomber/creep/crazy). 

I wished there were more Bettany/Ted to portray his actual level of capacity for socialization ... was he delusional? was he paranoid schizophrenic? what was his relationship to the librarian and her son -- ongoing, caring, sporadic, mentoring, dunno?  

Worthington expanded his role beyond cardboard cut out ... but not far enough ... I will look for him in the future but, oddly, I rather wished they had cast Dominic West, who he kept -- again and again -- reminding me ... I wish him well, but the 3-D really didn't hold. 

I'm glad they left out speculation about sexuality ... because what many today may not recognize is that waaaay-back-then ideas like "staying pure" and abstaining from sex to hone your (more important) intellectual/spiritual powers were pretty common.  Nothing I remember about his religious upbringing also.  Older than me, but that sort of platonic same-sex friend was not necessarily latent same-sex attraction, as a "safe" companion who -- unlike girls -- would not distract a young man or woman from "being all that you can be" ... boys and girls did not mingle comfortably and for Ted being at least 2 years younger than his classmates -- his dating prospects were dismal.  Some folks take up long distance running, dungeon and dragons or video gaming. 

All I can say is do not make any decision about what you thought the FBI did right or wrong based on this mini-series.  It is not a documentary. For instance, I've just highlighted three things in your response that I know to be not true or more complicated (as to complicated, I'm referencing the search warrant as complicated, it was based on so, so much, and not what the show showed, if you will; the other two things I highlighted are flat out wrong).  My recollection of that time was hazy so I did some google-research as watching this show and know just enough to not trust a single thing presented here as part of the story as being actual facts other than what I can verify independently. 

Edited October 26, 2017 by pennben

[SusanSunflower]

WRT #2, I was talking about the credibility of the story as written ... it didn't make sense for that character (as written) to stay with the FBI to be abused and have his awesome profiling skills dismissed (rudely).  It was easy to forget that he was declared, in the first scenes, the most awesome profiler in recent memory ...  

I felt the show straddled the fence on whether TedK was/is a paranoid schizophrenic (or suffers any mental illness at all).  The paradox of his not wanting an insanity defense -- because he wants to maintain credibility -- has a certain lunacy given he (allegedly according to "as-written") sent multiple senseless bombs in-order-to get attention and get his manifesto published ... ymmv, but that would undermine his alleged "sanity". 

The fixation on the bomb found in his cabin when the warrant was served was not really clear.  Yes, he had promised that he would stop sending bombs if his manifesto was published, but it wasn't clear why they though it had been manufactured after that promise - and - it occurred to me that it might be a potential "suicide bomb" to be used to avoid arrest, trial and whatever verdict.  It may just have been some other "security blanket" -- a personal talisman. 

I felt David's story -- which I realize has been told before -- got short shrift and I was confused since my limited knowledge was that David had secured the promise of "no death penalty" in exchange for identification, only to have the FBI renege or claim they had made no such promise.  I really appreciated the misuse of "plea bargains" to avoid public disclosure of evidence -- as has become common practice in so many cases, including the 2008 related bankster settlements.   Just today 50 years later, the JFK files are finally released except -- oh wait -- some number of files that were withheld ... pending review.  No wonder we have folks in GITMO still waiting trial, now wait, indictments, after 15 years of confinement -- it's a misuse of negotiations, which become endless ... justice delayed, etc. 

nuf.  I  still thought the series was fascinating -- well spent TV time.  Not sure I'm motivated to read more or do research ... too much to do already, added to daily, more pressing. 

[mamadrama]

On 8/31/2017 at 11:08 AM, MaggieG said:

I know I'm not supposed to but this episode made me feel a little bad for Ted. When he was standing outside the kid's house with his homemade musical object and he watches the kid get keyboard, my heart broke for him just a little. And then I remembered he's the Unabomber and I shouldn't lol. Paul Bettany is doing a great job.

Oh, I totally felt for him at that moment. I wound up feeling a lot of sympathy for Ted.

I was doing some research on the "study", and I found this in one of the articles about the movie.

The one really sad thing [was] Ted talks about the Murray experiments in his autobiography or in some of his journals, and there’s this moment when he says, “Why did I keep going back?” In the show, we say, “It’s to prove that he couldn’t break me,” which I think is the heart of the matter. But in his journals, Ted says, “He just promised me at the end there would be a party with girls at it, and I thought if I just hung in there, I would be invited to that party. Still to this day, it bothers me that there was no party.”

[weyrbunny]

I stumbled across this series I-don’t-know-how, and decided to try it when I noticed that Greg Yaitanes directed every episode. (He’s been a favorite since Children of Dune, and his work on Banshee was so insanely good, I’ll watch anything he directs.) I’m glad I did. It was better than I expected. Turns out I find linguistic forensics really interesting.

And, the direction was pretty great. I liked the tense atmospherics a lot, and every episode was visually arresting in both large and small ways. It felt like they went the extra mile to get some of the imagery, b-roll, montages, etc.

Yes, it was overly contrived “fiction” and had so, so many clichés—marriage, crime, workplace, academic clichés. All that boilerplate talk devoted to male motivation, legacy and credibility, too. I guess the writers couldn’t think of anything insightful to say.

But, some scenes rang true, when Tabby and the Comparative Lit student called out Fitz for using them, only relating to them to service the case, for example. And the face-to-face scenes with Fitz and Kaczynski were well-done, as @LADreamr said.

I also liked how the significance of details to the story unfolded with delayed explanation… the importance of “wudder”, the mom’s throw-away comment about Harvard. It was a reminder of how overused “info dump” explication scenes are in many crime shows.

On 8/23/2017 at 5:22 PM, meep.meep said:

I've never seen Sam Worthington in anything but Avatar.  He can actually act.

M:U reaffirmed my belief that Sam Worthington is a character actor who Hollywood mistakenly miscasts as an action star. He’s been giving really nuanced performances in indie films for years, and he followed suit in M:U. Especially in the early episodes, Worthington does more with body language than other actors do with words. The writing for Fitz wasn’t consistent, but the depth to Worthington’s acting was.

The finale’s opening image of the airlifted cabin was brilliant. I wish the preview hadn’t spoiled it a bit.

The cabin in the garage was a re-creation of the psychological “humiliation” study at Harvard—the moment Fitz showed the brother’s TV interview to Kaczynski, this occurred to me. Isolated in a “basement”… the brother saying false things about his mental health the way the study’s fake letter from his mother said false things… the “panel” of government figures/agents judging him in the background, and then Fitz repeating back Ted’s words and manifesto, like the professor using the interview video against him. That was an interrogation scene, the cabin as manipulation, using the Harvard study’s techniques.

And because of that scene, I could forgive the finale’s anti-climatic courtroom parts and its heavy-handed lionizing of Fitz. I found it absorbing to the end, regardless.

[Kel Varnsen]

Watched this on netflix and mostly enjoyed it. It seems kind of like they saw the success of The People vs OJ Simpson and decided to make their own famous 90s crime miniseries.

The acting was really good by everyone. The only thing that really bugged was how they framed it as one lone wolf agent who plays by his own rules is the only one who can catch the Unabomber. And of course no one recognizes his skills. I am pretty skeptical about criminal profiling to begin with so this series didn't help that, especially when they said they had a huge file full of different profiles.

Bettany was good althougn even when he was doing his American accent I still heard Jarvis. The only other real little things that bugged were that when they needed the warrant signed they of course were stuck with the oldest slowest reading judge. That was like something out of The Simpsons. 

I also thought they could have done a better job explaining how Fitz ended up living in the woods himself. Was it just because some asshole took credit for his work?