Did he or didn’t he? That is the central question posed in the true crime series The Staircase. It all stemmed from a case of crime novelist Michael Peterson (Colin Firth) being accused of fatally pushing his wife Kathleen (Toni Collette) down the stairs in their home. He spent the next sixteen years trying to prove his innocence amid a media circus and unanswered questions. Antonio Campos (Afterschool, Martha Marcy May Marlene) spoke with Creative Screenwriting about making his version of the story for television.
There was a docu-series also called The Staircase centering on Michael’s trial which ran from 2004-2018 which served as a starting point for Campos. He first viewed it in 2008 when he was reading copious amounts of true crime drama. The docu-series was later sent to Campos for him to consider adapting into a feature film. “I was excited by the idea of watching a true crime story unfold over eight hours,” he said referring to the original docu-series. “There was something about immersing myself in an investigation and the trial from all these different angles.” Antonio Campos found Michael Peterson to be a fascinating character after watching the original docu-series. “I’ve spent eight hours with him and still don’t know him. He was a mystery within a mystery.”
Campos was also taken by the fact that two French filmmakers headed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade were in Durham, North Carolina filming the entire trial. Campos found this to be an interesting detail to the story. Following his story instincts, Campos tracked down the producer and discussed the docu-series and his plans to remake it.
“He told me three things:
1) There’s more to the story than you see in the documentary,
2) The director and producer in the documentary cannot agree on what happened, and
3) The editor, Sophie Brunet, developed feelings for Michael Peterson and reached out to him while he was in prison and started a romantic relationship which is still ongoing.”
I had a chance to explore the case through the making of a documentary
Despite a documentary-series capturing the events in the courtroom, there are many events outside the trial sessions that the cameras couldn’t capture. Campos’ dramatized version of The Staircase sought to explore what happened when the cameras are turned off. “People may interact differently with each other off camera than they would on camera.” Although documentaries capture actual events, they are only recording a portion of the truth which is shaped into a persona in the editing suite.
This question of truth inspired Campos to examine the case through “the creation of multiple narratives.” The prosecution and defendants are standard elements of true crime dramas, but the insertion of an editor with a vested interested in Michael added a new dimension to the case details. “The editor is putting a version of Michael together.” Campos was also fascinated that there was no clear conclusion at the end despite Michael Peterson going to jail. This inconclusiveness raised more questions. “I like the more questions. I felt comfortable not knowing which is part of the story and part of life,” he added.
The Petersons – A Reality Show
Antonio Campos was especially interested the differences in the Peterson family dynamics “on and off camera.” The Petersons were already a blended family which included biological children from previous marriages and adopted children with Kathleen. This composition was especially personal to Campos. “I come from a family where I have a half brother and half sister from different marriages, but we feel like one unit.” He was subsequently attracted to the Peterson family mix comprising of elements of three different families. “Three different tragedies brought them together and made them a unit.”
Antonio Campos. Photo by Dave Allocca/ StarPix/ HBO Max
Another aspect of the Peterson family that Campos wanted to explore was whether they were a happy family until Kathleen died or whether there were existing fissures in the family unit that were exacerbated at the time of her death. “You realize how the family dynamics changed over the course of the series by playing out the past and present in chronological order and in parallel.”
The Petersons were at a breaking point when Kathleen died.
Kathleen’s death was the incident that swept their family issues aside to focus on Michael’s innocence or guilt. Each sibling had their own theories on the events while dealing with their amplified family problems. “How does a family deal with the truth? What is the truth?” The Staircase further examines how the siblings now relate to Michael without Kathleen.
The Petersons become the subject of a reality TV show with the invasion of their home and privacy with cameras. “Michael’s performative actions became heightened in the presence of cameras,” said Campos. The media throngs also helped shape and distort the narrative surrounding the case.
Campos was also fascinated by the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee. “Each one wants something from the other. The capture may not capture the truth, but rather, whatever you’re putting out at that moment.” Most of Petersons performance on camera was to assert his innocence, but also to be the most interesting person in the room.
When In Doubt
Uncertainty, doubt, and not knowing are parts of life we all face, either willingly or not. Dramatic crime television typically culminates in a final verdict. The Staircase deliberately does not. “Leaving the audience in doubt allows the other questions in the series to have more weight,” asserted Campos to justify his creative choices. “It invites the audience to ask who the Petersons are in public and who they are in private. Is the version of Michael with Kathleen on screen truthful? Can Michael exist in two versions of himself?” The audience is left to ponder Kathleen’s question of how did she cope with an open marriage after Michael declared he was bisexual. “The audience will never know. There is something deeper than the events surrounding the staircase.” The Staircase is ultimately a character study of spouses.
Can you be married to someone who is ultimately unknowable?
The Staircase spans eight episodes. Around the mid point in episode four, the story leans away from the crime and into the character studies as the audience resigns itself to the fact it will not be issued with a clear verdict at the end. “You never hear the verdict. The series will not show exactly what happened, but the possibilities of what might have happened.” Campos believes that withholding the verdict allows for more interesting character development. During that fateful night, Kathleen and Michael had a terrible fight. This says more about their marriage than whether Kathleen’s fall down the stairs was accidental or not. Episode four alters the course of the story because the trial scenes are over by then. There had to be more.
“We interpreted that there was a love between Michael and Kathleen.” But it’s not a romantic love. It’s more of a friendship. “The Staircase explores whether Michael is capable of a deeper kind of love with a woman.” There is an unresolved conflict in Michael’s life because he goes on to establish a relationship with the editor Sophie (Juliette Binoche). “He splits them in two and learns to bring the two compartmentalized versions of himself together.”
Michael Peterson (Colin Firth) Photo Courtesy og HBO Max
The Writers’ Room
Antonio Campos lived with The Staircase for many years in many forms – from docu-series, to feature, to television series. It took him a long time to play with the event timelines. He was adamant that he wasn’t going to impose a final verdict on anybody in his writers’ room. “I told the writers to write him the way they saw him, killer or not.” There was considerable discussion on what evidence or theories were going to be explored and in how much detail. “We looked at the murder theory, the accident theory, and the freak accident theory.”
The writers also grappled with how much of the trial to include in the series. Some writers also had difficulty in defining the relationship between Sofie, the editor, and Michael. She first developed feelings for him from afar before acting on them. Campos didn’t want to create a relationship of a woman falling in love with a convict. “We wanted to complicate that dynamic. It was a real love. Sofie had a deep appreciation of Michael as a man, a father, a husband, and as a writer. She felt she understood Michael before she spoke to him.”
The Staircase is critical of the legal justice system for each side. “There’s a selective, cherry-picking of what facts they’re going to include in the trial and which they’re going to conveniently forget. Each side tends to remember the facts that are good for them and forget those that aren’t.”
“The problem with our adversarial justice system is that it isn’t concerned with the search for the truth, but who’s telling the better story. Through fiction, you can sometimes get closer to the truth than through reality.”
Antonio Campos has written for both features and television. He has noticed a stark difference between the two, particularly the way time works between the formats. “You can’t look at an hour of television as the same as the first half of a feature. You’re really writing about ten to fifteen minutes of a movie that takes place over the course of an hour in the same number of pages.”
“Allow the process to be the process. Sometimes you want to get to an answer quickly, and what proves to be the best course is to not force anything.” There are days were you may not get any breakthroughs, but trust that they will come eventually.
