Part satire, part comedy, part corrupted fairy tale, and part-farce, Errol Morris came across an article about dog-cloning that formed the nature of Tabloid. The director/co-executive producer labels his works “anti-documentaries,” not about obvious visual surfaces but about what lies behind the images, less concerned with whatever is photographed than with what is seen in the eye of the beholder, with “elements of self-deception, but beyond that.”
The subject here is sixty-one-year-old Joyce McKinney, a tabloid star in the late 70’s U.K. It all started in September of 1977; a young Mormon named Kirk Anderson went missing from a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in England, where he was working as a missionary. A few days later he called police to report he’d been abducted by McKinney, a girl he’d dated back in the States. Anderson claimed that McKinney and her accomplice, Keith Joseph “KJ” May had taken him to a remote cottage and imprisoned him, and that McKinney, after failing to seduce him, had raped him several times. McKinney maintained (and does to this day) that she helped him escape from the Mormon “cult,” and that they had enjoyed a romantic weekend together that included making love, before his Mormon guilt sent him fleeing back to the church; forcing him to lie about the encounter.
Her arrest captivated public and press, The Daily Express more or less on her side—reporter Peter Tory’s comments are perhaps the most measured and thought out in the film. Following the trail of her dog Millie—Joyce traveled everywhere with a large, unforgettable sheepdog—The Mirror splashed what she labels doctored photos of her as model/dominatrix prostitute. The “Manacled Mormon” or “Sex in Chains” was all the rage, even after McKinney and May skipped the country.
Though Anderson declined to be interviewed, Morris talks with Peter Tory, and Kent Gavin, a photographer for the Daily Mirror, to get the tabloid perspective; Troy Williams, a former missionary and Salt Lake City radio host and Jackson Shaw, the fixed-wing pilot who got out of the scheme before it got out of hand. There’s no doubt though that the star of the show is McKinney herself. A somewhat sad figure to those of us watching, she seems to have fun relating her story. Sadly, in Tory’s words, she’s probably “barking mad.”
As one might expect from Errol Morris, Tabloid isn’t your standard talking heads documentary, though he eschews his oft-deployed device of re-enactments, the film is filled with ingenious illustrations (including a new device of using headline-style on-screen graphics to highlight keywords, attribute credit, and act as commentary), and strange archival footage. The film begins with McKinney reading from the “pending book A Very Special Love Story,” which recasts her story as the tale of a fairy tale princess (the footage was shot by Trent Harris, known among film cultists for his Beaver Trilogy); towards the end, there is an odd piece of home video footage that McKinney shot to illustrate the disruptiveness of a neighbor’s barking dog. But she keeps starting over, doing retakes, obsessively re-shooting it. Strange. Morris leaves it all in.
It’s impossible to know what really happened in that English cabin. The closest thing we have to a voice of reason–lays out Anderson’s claims as “Story #1,” McKinney’s fairy tale as “Story #2,” but proposes “a third scenario: something in between.” Only those who were there really know, and they’re not telling. Midway through the film, McKinney says, “You know, you can tell a lie long enough, until you believe it.” She’s talking about Kirk there, but she could be talking about herself.
No less bizarre if almost a tag-on, she would be back in the semi-limelight thirty years afterwards, hiring a South Korean doctor to clone five puppies — “We’re pregnant!” — from tissue of her dearly departed pit bull Booger. I don’t know what to think of the Mormon story, or the cloned dogs, but Tabloid is an interesting way to spend 88 minutes.
Presented in the 2:40.1 aspect ratio, Tabloid looks as good as it possibly can for a standard DVD. There is a mix of current interview footage with old archival stuff, so quality varies in that sense, but viewers should be quite pleased.
The 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack does a fine job with this documentary that’s made up entirely of the spoken word. Dialogue is clear and concise throughout.
English SDH, and Spanish subtitles are available.
Other than the theatrical trailer, there are no special features available.
