Doco has more than Manson on its mind
Sitting down to watch the first episode of Helter Skelter: An American Myth, I wondered whether I even needed to bother.
The story of Charles Manson and his ‘‘family’’ has been so endlessly referenced, resurrected and re-written over the past five decades, it’s hard to believe there is really anything new to be said. And perhaps there isn’t.
So film-maker Lesley Chilcott instead tells us everything we already know. But, to be fair, she does do an extraordinarily good job of weaving together the storylines into a six-part, 300-minute show that is an in-depth portrait of one slice of America – and how it imploded – as the nation was rocked on its axis.
Manson was an ex-con, a drifter and a relentless user of people. He had spent half his life in jail and institutions by the time he washed up in Los Angeles, after time spent in San Francisco and Berkeley. He preached a mish-mash of a coming race war and an impending doomsday. He cherrypicked references from lyrics – especially Beatles’ songs – Dale Carnegie, the Bible and Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In a Strange Land. Naturally, to make this blended mess of the profound and the nonsensical even partly digestible, Manson made sure his followers – who numbered around 20 – were permanently high on LSD, grass and whatever else they could get their hands on.
The surviving followers agree that Manson also used, but in smaller doses than the people he claimed to lead.
Sometime in 1968, Manson formed a short-lived friendship with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson – (fun fact, Dennis was the only Beach Boy who could actually surf) – which led to Manson and ‘‘17 girls’’ moving into Wilson’s home. Manson believed that his meagre talents as a writer and musician were going to make him a star, with Wilson’s friend Terry Melcher about to sign and produce him.
When Manson realised Melcher was going to do no such thing, he directed his followers to go to Melcher’s house and kill everyone there in a fashion that would incite fear and racial hatred. It is theorised that Manson didn’t know Melcher was no longer living at the house on Cielo Drive. But others believe Manson did know it was now home to director Roman Polanski and actor Sharon Tate – and that he wanted them killed as a warning to Melcher.
Helter Skelter: An American Myth takes what is known about Manson and sets the story in motion against the backdrop of America in turmoil. The assassinations of John and
Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers were all bloodily fresh in the public memory. The war in Vietnam was spiralling into chaos and the White House, under Richard Nixon, was widely mistrusted. A month earlier, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren had walked on the moon.
By any standards, 1969 was an epoch-shifting year – and into that, a gang of despised ‘‘hippies’’ committed a grisly murder that struck right at the heart of Hollywood and liberalism.
Helter Skelter is a show with an era and a generation on its mind and the Manson story is maybe its most redundant content. It was the background that kept me watching.