Historic true crime blogger Laura James's review of this fantastic true crime documentary stoked my interest in both the documentary and the crime itself. I'm grateful to Laura for putting me in touch with Kelly and Tammy Rundle, the directing/producing team behind Villisca: Living with a Mystery.
I watched the DVD sent to me by the Rundles two nights ago. Everyone else in the house was asleep, and I watched it on the computer, the room otherwise dark.
That was probably a bad idea.
For Villisca: Living with a Mystery spooks you even as it takes you to a place and time long gone, to little Villisca, in southwest Iowa. You are set down first on June 10, 1912. The streets are wide, and there are still more horses and carriages than motorcars.
That night in Villisca the children at the Presbyterian Church gave a Childrens' Day program. Participating were the Stillinger sisters, Lena and Ina, and some of the Moore children: Herman, 11, Katherine, 10, Boyd, 7, and Paul, 5. Sara Moore, matriarch of the Moore clan headed by local businessman Josiah Moore, had been in charge of the childrens' program. The Moores were one of Villisca's leading families.
Around 9:30 that night the church doors opened and people spilled with the light onto the street, heading home.
To understand the magic Kelly and Tammy Rundle were able to work with their deceptively simple approach to this story you should know that as I watched the movie, I could imagine the warmth of the June night, the rustling of wools and linens as people chatted, walking into the dark. I could smell burnt coffee wafting up from the church, where perhaps the men had gathered before the program to talk politics, or business, or do bible study.
Perhaps pipes were lit, or cigars, and in the dark laughter unfurled, and as people moved into the night towards home, it faded.
The lights went out in Villisca that night. So as the Moores made their way home, the Stillinger sisters coming along to stay for the night, the dark was deeper than it might have been on any other night.
The style of Villisca: Living with a Mystery is familiar to anyone who has ever seen one of Ken Burns's well-made and often intellectually satisfying productions on PBS, but the Rundles have placed their own unique stamp on the story. Through interviews with elderly residents and former residents of the town as well as chats with authorities on certain types of crime (like famed profiler Robert K. Ressler) they weave a story that combines the feel of family talks taking place at twilight on the front porch with a slowly intensifying true crime story well-worth the full-length documentary treatment.
Aged folks speaking with a rough eloquence about a past that to many of them was anything but distant share the screen with tastefully chosen photos of the crime scene, as well as modestly rendered recreations. Underpinning all of it is a pitch-perfect soundtrack, incorporating original music as well as traditional American music—I was struck by the eerie way the filmmakers incorporated a piano version of one of my favorite hymns, "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need" under scenes about the beginnings of the ultimately misbegotten investigation into what happened after the Moores got home that night.
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