KILLER POET

Boston film looks into the double life of notorious convict Norman Porter

By HARRY VAUGHN

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Killer Poet: The Double Life of Norman Porter is a dark and absorbing documentary that takes full advantage of its intricate and multifaceted subject. Spanning 45 years, Susan Gray's film explores the life of Norman Porter, a convicted double murderer, whose miraculous escape from a Massachusetts prison led him to Chicago, where he assumed the name of J.J. Jameson for over 20 years. During this time, he became an acclaimed poet and received Chicago's "Poet of the Month" award in 2004. Porter was apprehended by the Massachusetts state police in 2005 and sentenced once again to life in prison.

Gray (director and producer) divides her film into two strikingly different narratives. She begins with the grisly life of Norman Porter and later contrasts it with the harmless life J.J. Jameson led in Chicago. Through extensive interviews with the victims' family members, Gray initially paints Porter as a young and clever thief who murdered both John Pigott and David S. Robinson with cold and calculating indifference.

However, as the film goes on, his guilt becomes less and less easier to determine as questions and speculations arise from council members and civilians about his potential innocence. Once the life of J.J. Jameson is revealed through interviews with his friends and colleagues from Chicago, this newfound artist and churchgoer appears to be a different man from the one so ominously depicted in the film's first half.

So which side of Porter are we meant to empathize with?

Gray, much to her credit, never takes a particular stance and instead forces the audience to see both sides of a baffling and confusing case. On the one hand, we sympathize with this saddened older man who wants nothing more than to return to a life in which he was happy and productive after years of imprisonment. On the other hand, sturdy evidence from police files shows that Porter shot 20-year-old John Pigott during a robbery and that he assisted in the murder of prison guard David S. Robinson during his first failed escape from a Cambridge penitentiary.

However, Killer Poet becomes more than just a debate over the moral ambiguity of Porter's character. Gray changes gears near the end of the film and delves deeper into the hotly debated issue of prison reform. Her film questions the legitimacy of a system in which Porter lived and worked for so many years and wonders whether or not it gave him an actual chance to change his ways.

Is prison meant to rehabilitate its inmates or does it only punish? Should a man like Porter ever be given a second chance to turn his life around, or are some deeds too terrible to atone for? Killer Poet does not attempt to unearth the answers. Its superior craft lies in its ability to embrace the chilly uncertainty of its subject matter.

KILLER POET

PART OF THE BOSTON INTL. FILM FESTIVAL

AMC LOEWS BOSTON COMMON

SATURDAY 6.14.08

175 TREMONT ST., BOSTON

617.423.3499

4:45PM/$10

KILLERPOETFILM.COM

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