Thought Crimes, the about-to-air HBO documentary about so-called "cannibal cop" Gilberto Valle is excruciating to watch, in a good way. The subject matter is tough; familiar by now due to relentless media coverage, Valle's chat logs ("the abduction will be flawless. i can make chloroform here. she does look tasty doesn't she") take on new life laid over recurring shots of Valle looking into the blue glow of a screen, and images of women being tortured. But equally difficult is the movie's stubborn refusal to present Valle as purely a monster or a misunderstood mope.
Every time the film shares something deeply disturbing—like the fact that Valle visited the rape/murder/cannibalism porn website Dark Fetish Net 1,000 times in 2012, including on his iPhone while on duty as a Harlem cop—there is something to reassure us—like the revelation that he had closed his account on the site for good just before his wife turned him in. Then that too takes on sinister implications as we see a chat log where Valle tells a fellow fetishist who he discussed elaborate kidnapping and torture plots with that he is quitting the site so there's "less chance of getting caught." The ambivalence is as haunting as the imagery.
Through it all we also get to know Valle and his doting mother, to see his cooking and dating website profile as something more than a source of tabloid puns, and to hear talking heads debate the big-picture implications of being prosecuted for things you write anonymously online. The crew followed Valle from when he was jailed awaiting trial through his conviction and a judge's stunning reversal of that conviction. Now, federal prosecutors are appealing, and the film's premiere, on May 11th at 9 pm, is well-timed, coming on the eve of the opening of oral arguments.
We talked to director Erin Lee Carr about what it was like sifting through heaps of torture porn, and why she thinks "it's fine" for people to look at it.
Do you think the tabloids' glee in covering this case distorted the true horror at the center of what Gilberto Valle was accused of? I think the tabs were plenty pushed into the horror themes and the scary chats. Of course there was a certain dark humor as it related to the cannibalism. But my initial read on the story was, I was scared. This was a cop who was having these thoughts.
On the other end of it, do you think that the coverage didn't do justice to the First Amendment implications, and the thought crime aspect of the case that you explored. I think the initial coverage did not do a good job, broadly. It was far too new. We were just getting the facts as they were received. But then there was a series of pieces. Dan Engber at Slate and Robert Kolker at New York magazine had very thought-provoking pieces about the case. And what I took away from Dan Engber that I'll never forget is Googling as an extension of the mind. I have that on a notecard on my wall, because it really is.
That's at the heart of this film. Is a Google search, is something that we type into the computer, is it a thought or is it an action? And what implications does that have for us?
It's hard to defend having a file like this on your computer, but Valle's lawyers did it. (Jane Rosenberg/HBO)
Engber recently wrote a column titled "Leave the Cannibal Cop Alone". On the eve of his appeal, do you agree with that sentiment? Do you think that this guy's been through enough, that the legal case has been tried and lost by the state and he should be able to live his life from here? I think that my personal opinion doesn't matter. It is being litigated. I think that the prosecution feels like they need to continue the case. I think that Dan Engber has long looked at this case. But I think you see from his coverage that he has a very positive outlook on [Valle] and the case. I think that it's really important to remain objective and understand the legal system. It does what it will do.
This is a really serious case that has really serious implications, so that's why the government is taking it seriously.
I'm curious how you got the shot that you return to again and again of Valle looking at the computer, or in the glow of something that looks like a computer in a dark room. Because if I was his lawyer I would have definitely discouraged him from doing the film, but also from posing for anything like that. That was in his home at his mom's house in Queens. It was the flicker of the television. When you're under house arrest you can watch television; you can eat food; you can play with your dog; you can invite a film crew. It represented a digital glow on [Valle].
We found that it was one of the most natural moments that we filmed with him. He wasn't talking. He was just sitting and looking at a screen, which is how this all started.
As far as all the kitchen scenes, I know the kitchen is the social center of the house. Is the proportion of conversations and kitchen shots correlated to how much time he and his mom spent in the kitchen? It was always about the kitchen. Everyone was always in the kitchen. I think people remark that there's a lot of eating scenes in there, but that's what you could do in this house. [Valle] likes to cook. He cooked in prison. That was one of his jobs.
It's a part of his personality, despite the ironic component associated with it.
And of course those kinds of mundane things can take on sinister implications given what he's accused of. Also, the first couple times we cut away to the food and it's scary and it's uncomfortable. But as we keep returning to it, it was my hope that the behavior becomes a bit more normalized. He's not the cannibal cop cooking at home. He's a guy that's cooking in his house.
A photo of Valle during his NYPD days. (HBO)
You note in the credits that Valle's co-conspirator Dale "Moody Blues" Bollinger was convicted of grooming a young girl. In your research how much overlap did you find between pedophilia and this kind of violent fetishism. From what I know about fetishes and the research that I've done, if your sexual interest is women 18-30 or whatever, it's not going to deviate that much. I think that when it came to Dale Bollinger, he was obsessed with the depravity. And when you involve minors, it becomes that much more depraved. Moody Blues was playing a character. He was playing a Hannibal Lecter character with [Valle]. He was the older, harder, wizened cannibal that was instructing Gil how to do it.
He would say things like, "Child bones are better." And I think it was part of this very depraved, uncomfortable way to up the ante.
Is there any consensus in the mental health community about how to deal with these kinds of sexual or violent interests? I do not think that going online and exploring these interests is healthy, especially if it's something you want to control or moderate. I think that vanilla pornography makes you want more and more. So I think that sexual fetishes that make you uncomfortable or that you want to hide from your partner are hard to manage.
As Chris Kraft [head of a sexual psychology division at Johns Hopkins University] says in the film, we do not choose what we're aroused by. I think the best we can hope for is therapy and communication and being honest. And obviously not acting on impulses that are illegal or very dangerous.
Is Valle seeking any kind of therapy at this point? He is in court-mandated therapy. That is the restriction for him getting out of house arrest.
Valle is slowly returning to society, but still has a federal case hanging over his head. (HBO)
In an interview with Rolling Stone you mentioned being inspired by Andrew Jarecki. He was recently the focus of some attention for the final episode of The Jinx coming out the day after Robert Durst was arrested. I was wondering, along those lines, how intentional the timing of this release was a day ahead of the appeal beginning. I think that HBO knew we were gonna air in May because they have a whole slew of content and there was only a certain number of spaces available for Monday night. And it was gonna be on May 11th. When I heard [the appeal would begin] on May 12th, there was a timing question, but we knew the film was going to be in May.
Before you knew when the appeal was going to be? [pause]
Is that right? I should know the answer to this. I think, yes, I can say, because I have it, that the people at HBO that mentioned dates, we didn't know the dates for oral arguments before we could.
I'm not trying to get you in trouble. I personally think the controversy around Jarecki was overblown. The juror you interviewed made it clear that the jury convicted based on gut instinct and not the standard a jury is supposed to convict on. I was wondering how you made contact with that juror. I worked with Andrew Rossi on the film and he had a very heavy role in discussing who we needed for this film and a juror was always a very significant get. Alison Byrne, an associate producer and I reached out to every single juror. And due to the graphic nature of the case, I kept getting the response back: "No, that was a really difficult trial to get through and I'd prefer not to return to it."
So when we did get one of the jurors to speak, it was an incredible moment. And when she went on to say that they convicted not really on the right parameters, we knew it was a big moment. She and the jury convicted him based on what he might do versus what he did. And that's not okay.
What was the decision-making process like around showing [Valle target and college friend] Kimberly Saunders's face and the place where she worked? Was there any concern about drawing further attention to her through the eyes of this predator? There was heavy contemplation about what we felt comfortable with and what we did not feel comfortable with showing as it related to the victim. The photos that you see in the film were used in news pieces and they are part of the public record. To a certain extent, in certain cases, we didn't show pictures.
The reason why we specifically employed the use of the shots as it relates to the lunch that [Valle] and [Saunders] met, at as it relates to her place of work, was because we were demonstrating that this was a scary moment. This was the most overt out of the things he did. He went down to Maryland. He asked her where she worked. He texted her about it and then went to this lunch spot with her. I think it's important that as audience members you realize that that was a step over the line to a certain extent. There was a great deal of thought put into it.
I think this film and this case forever ties those women to his fantasies. It's really difficult.
What was the research process like, as far as going through the chat logs and going on these sites to find out what they're like? I'm sure I'm on a list somewhere now. It was really graphic and a lot of time was spent looking at the chats. There was a lot of looking into the dark heart of this case to see what it's really about. I as a person was changed. I think the jurors were changed, the legal team was changed. I think [Valle] changed. It's hard to look at these things and not have a feeling.
But I found this case to be really significant in terms of free speech, and online behavior and its legal implications, so it was definitely worth looking into the dark part of it. My poor roommates.
Following the series of busts of Dark Fetish Net users, was there a change of behavior among users of that site, or did people migrate elsewhere on the internet? Following the arrest and trial of Gil Valle there was a more heavy disclaimer put on the Dark Fetish homepage saying "This is for fantasy only." I think that was as a result of the Valle case. I think that you have to sign up to Dark Fetish Net in order to see the content. There's 60,000 people on that site. [Valle] is not alone. And if people want to look at that in a safe, consensual, non-implementing way, that's fine.
I really never wanted this film to be like, "Look at the freaks. It's so gross to look at cannibalism." It's not. It's fine. It's fine to have fantasies. It's not fine to attack women.
Your last project was about a libertarian who is 3-D printing guns. In an attempt to draw a connection between the two, what draws you to these distinctly 21st century, sinister men. Wow. [Laughs] So I grew up in the Vice house, and I had a really great boss named Santiago [Stelley] and a lot of other great people I worked with. The formula for documentaries is find a great character and find a cultural problem. How do you marry those two concepts? Because people need to root for or against a character. And that's the way we get through a social issue.
That's my secret sauce for telling a compelling story.
I hope that I make stories about women too. Just so far, it's been men. There are lots of dangerous women, too.
