HBO’s true story behind The Staircase.
The original docies delved into the death of Kathleen Peterson, who was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in 2001. Her husband, Michael Peterson, became the show’s central enigmatic character. A novelist who was convicted of Mr. Peterson’s murder, though he vehemently denied it until the very end. He was followed and filmed by a French documentary crew and the show was directed by Jean Xavier de Lestrade, eventually being broadcast in three chunks, covering several time periods. It has been a phenomenal success, being called “the godfather of true crime documentary” by The Guardian, and so an adaptation seemed inevitable. A scripted adaptation has been kicked around since 2008, and in 2020 Campos announced that HBO Max had picked up the project.
Colin Firth plays Mr. Peterson, with Toni Collette playing his wife and Michael Stuhlbarg playing Michael’s lawyer, David Rudolph. The show was released midway through 2022 and has been well-received by critics. It gave audiences another chance to peel back the mystery, engage with various theories and view the events of The Staircase through a different lens. However, the HBO show’s approach to telling the story has drawn criticism from the docies original director, de Lestrade, who said that he feels betrayed by the drama’s interpretation of events. What exactly did HBO Max change?
Is The Staircase Based On A True Story?
Yes, The Staircase is based on a true story. In 2001, Mrs. Peterson was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in her and Mr. Peterson’s house. Mr. Peterson was arrested and put on trial for murder and a French true crime documentary team did indeed fly to the United States and follow the trial from the viewpoint of the defense. Mr. Peterson was found guilty by trial and sentenced to life in prison. However, the sentence was overturned in 2011 and a second trial date was set. To avoid having to go through the ordeal of a trial again, Mr. Peterson entered what's called an "Alford Plea." He entered a guilty plea of voluntary manslaughter, given time served and walked away from the case a free man in 2017. Mr. Peterson denied having anything to do with the death of his wife and the docies never leans toward one theory or another. The true story of what happened to Mrs. Peterson remains a mystery to this day.
The Owl Did It
How did Mrs. Peterson fall down the stairs? That’s the central question that drives both the docies andreal-life-focused The Staircase docies, because he thought it wasn’t valid.
Who Was Kathleen Peterson?
One significant addition that was simply not possible in the original docies is the inclusion of Mrs. Peterson as a fully fleshed out character. There is no way of knowing the true nature of Mr. Peterson and his wife’s interactions, and while the docies spent some time delving into who Mrs. Peterson was – we know she was a business woman and was born in Pennsylvania – the show goes one step further and includes entire scenes of scripted dialogue and assumed responses. In episode 1 “Death on the Staircase,” the audience learns about certain aspects of her character that could’ve only come from a scriptwriter: her concerns about a business merger and her struggle to be the connective tissue within her disted family. Without Mrs. Peterson being present for any of the docies, everything dramatized in The Stairway - much like the actions of the killers and victims in Mindhunter, a show similarly based on true events - has been completely made up, based off assumption and conjecture. The audience can never really know who Mrs. Peterson was, but the HBO Max show chose to paint a pretty clear picture who she was. While it’s unclear how much HBO Max has changed by choosing to write Mrs. Peterson as a character in her own right, it does succeed in making her more relatable, more human, and not just a dead body to drive a story.
Mr. Peterson and Rudolph’s Interactions
Several times throughout the HBO Show The Staircase, Mr. Peterson loses his rag with his lawyer, David Rudolph. Rudolph has since come out to say that Mr. Peterson was always courteous, gracious, and never lost his temper with him. When referring to a scene in episode 5 “The Beating Heart” where the show depicts Michael Stuhlbarg's Rudolph fielding an angry phone call from Mr. Peterson in prison, who has just learnt that he has lost his appeal, Rudolph said (via Variety), “Did Michael ever talk to me in an angry tone or be mad at me? Never, ever, ever, ever.”
Why The Staircase Cast Includes the Original Documentary Crew
The original documentary crew are as integral to the story of Mr. Peterson as his own family. They involved themselves in his story almost from day one, and yet they are barely characterized in the docies. The HBO Max show took several liberties in presuming how their involvement changed or impacted the course of the trial and the aftermath of it. In episode 5 “The Beating Heart,” the show centers on the creation of the documentary, a process not often depicted, and the internal struggles between the crew. HBO Max depicts de Lestrade (Vincent Vermignon) and Sophie Brunet (Juliette Binoche) believing Mr. Peterson’s innocent plea and producer, Denis Poncet (Frank Feys) thinking he is guilty. These assumptions are never revealed in the docies. The show also expands on the relationship between Mr. Peterson and Brunet. While factually correct – Mr. Peterson and Brunet did in fact have a 13-year relationship - the true extent of their relationship is unknown and the HBO Max show included back-room arguments between Brunet and the other crew, about which scenes should be kept in the documentary. Arguments that didn’t necessarily happen.
The dramatization of a true crime story will inevitably include scripted flourishes that bear little resemblance to the truth. To its credit, The Staircase has stayed fairly close to its source material and the changes don’t stray too far from what the audience could fairly believe from the available evidence. While utilizing some poetic license to build a gripping family drama, the HBO Max show and the docies end in much the same way. The true answer to what happened to Mrs. Peterson remains impossible to grasp.