Host: We might hand over to Marcos and get a little bit of a rundown on the film ‘Leaving Neverland’ he has seen. Marcos was not at the Sundance festival to see the film – it was sent to his film distribution company and this is how he got to see the entire ‘documentary’. Marcos, can you give us a bit of a rundown on things that the film includes and how you as a filmmaker view this film and its effect?
8:45 MARCOS: Okay. Like two weeks ago, or ten days ago, I don’t remember, my distribution company called me that they had received a film ‘Leaving Neverland”. Actually they were a little worried. This distribution company distributes my films and my next film is not a Michael Jackson documentary [but about Bruce Swedien] and they called me and said, “Maybe you should see this because this could be a problem”. So I went to their offices and sat down in front of a computer and I watched the whole movie and I couldn’t believe what I saw.
What the director has done in this movie is that he builds up the first part of the movie very very good, and it’s very credible. The first part of the movie is how James and Wade met Michael. You have to think that meeting Michael Jackson is something quite unique. Not everybody has had the luck to meet the man. So when you are watching a movie where two kids, two normal kids have the luck to meet Michael it is already like magical.
They tell you this for like half an hour or 45 minutes, they explain to you how these kids met Michael. And they are showing you pictures of the kids with Michael – Michael with the kids in their home, like very relaxed pictures on the sofa with family, and you as a spectator you are like – oh, my God, how lucky they’ve been!
So you are slowing getting into their world. You trust them, you believe them, because you see the evidence – because yes, they’ve met Michael Jackson. And that’s quite unique.
And when they have captured you in this way, when they have you like “now you are in my world, you are now in a magical world, you see I met Michael, you see my pictures with Michael. Now I am going to start saying other stuff”.
And that’s why I couldn’t find it credible, that stuff. Because it was like a very nice movie about two kids meeting Michael, first one and then the other, and then suddenly they start talking about abuse, they start saying those nasty things that I cannot even reproduce. Descriptions, descriptions, descriptions of so many horrible things, you wouldn’t imagine.
I couldn’t believe a word of them. I saw clearly what the director was doing. When you want to say a lie first you have to say the truth. The first 35 minutes of the documentary is all truth, so you believe everything and from then on you have to believe everything they say. When the 35-45 minutes were over, it’s when lies began. I couldn’t believe a word of what they said.
What Dan Reed has done is a very credible 35 minutes beginning of the story and very nice too, so when they get you trapped, now the lies begin.
12:00 HOST: So basically he’s gained the audience trust and then…
12:05 MARCOS: Exactly! Because you like those kids. For the first 35 minutes you liked them, you want to be like them, you want to be their friends, you think how lucky they’ve been and how incredible was Michael. They talk about Michael and say that he is a great guy, so it is a very nice, nice atmosphere. And after that it turns like 180 degrees and the bad thing starts.
12:35 HOST: Also the first 35 minutes which is the wonderful stuff and all those photos is another reason why you trust and believe them, because it’s all real, easily provable, there is evidence for all of that. So they have evidence of all those stories – why would you then doubt the rest?
12:55 MARCOS: Exactly. That’s the trick, that’s the trick of the film. The 35 minutes are all true – so now you believe the rest, the other 3 hours. That’s what they’ve done.
13:05 HOST: So Marcos, when you get into the second half of the film when the allegations are coming out and they detail the allegations that are horrible lies around sexual acts, does Dan Reed attempt to put in any evidence, like other evidence around at all or is it just the stories of the guys?
13:25 MARCOS: No, no. Just the stories, there is no evidence. Zero evidence. There are some faxes and some autographs, and Michael saying “I love you”, “I miss you”, but that’s not evidence to me. That’s not evidence of sexual abuse.
Host: Taj, you’ve found some letters that you’ve mentioned before. Marcos, you mentioned that in that documentary all they have is some faxes. Was there anything else other than faxes?
24:20 MARCOS: No. Nothing else. The big part of their accusations are descriptions. So when you are watching the film, the film is description, description, description. They say all these horrible things that supposedly happened. And you really feel bad. You feel bad because you don’t want to hear all those bad words, not because you are believing what they are saying.
If I do a three hour documentary saying that the Earth is flat someone will probably believe that the Earth is flat. And this is a documentary where for three hours and a half these two guys are saying horrible things. They describe horrible situations in hotel rooms, in Neverland and it’s quite sick, it is really, really sick. So this is like the strong part of the movie, the descriptions. But there is no evidence. Zero evidence. And there is only one side of the story. There is no one saying the other part of the story or trying to fight them back. This is not good professional work.
