Why HBO's documentary about the Cannibal Cop case is filled with dark humor
HBO recently debuted the documentary following Gilberto Valle, a former NYPD officer who was accused of using an online chat room to plot a scheme to kidnap, rape, and eat dozens of women. His subsequent trial became a media phenomenon. He was dubbed "Cannibal Cop."
Upon first viewing, some of the laughter in an otherwise disturbing documentary might seem like an accident. However, director Erin Lee Carr told Business Insider she wanted to bring some light moments to an otherwise troubling subject matter.
"... People were really terrified but then kind of a couple weeks later the tabloids were kind of making a joke about it because there was something sort of inherently funny about this sort of dark subject matter." Carr told Business Insider.
After Valle's arrest, he became something of a media punchline. The film highlights many of the newspaper covers he graced.
Scenes which elicited a lot of uncomfortable laughter at a Tribeca Film Festival screening I attended were ones that showed Valle in his house cooking. Carr noticed that, too. Nearly every time they're in house, Valle can be seen cooking up a new meal.
When asked about the number of cooking scenes, Carr explained they had a lot of that footage to work with.
"Everyone is so kind of obsessed about [the food shots] and I understand the edits kind of make it seem like we're being playful," Carr said. "I swear to you, being under house arrest he couldn't even go into his backyard. We could watch television. We could talk. Or we could eat food."
All of that b-roll of Valle cooking and eating led to some surprisingly hilarious, seamless transitions like this one:
Carr hopes these scenes could serve a bigger purpose.
"I hoped that the cooking shots would normalize his behavior a bit." Carr said. "After the first couple times it's like 'it's scary! It's uncomfortable!' But that's something...it was kind of a guy in his kitchen and I think so many people took it all sorts of different ways."