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In his latest documentary “Crazy, Not Insane”—screening at documentary film festival IDFA—Alex Gibney gives the floor to Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a renowned American psychiatrist who has examined numerous serial killers. Specializing in the study of people with dissociative identity disorder (Did), Lewis has concluded that many of the 20th century’s most notorious murderers—including Joel Rifkin, Joseph Paul Franklin and Arthur Shawcross—experienced horrific abuse as children. “What happens to us in our childhood can have a profound influence on who we end up as adults,” Gibney muses.

He has never been a “serial killer aficionado,” he admits, preferring to delve into the dark side of human psychology rather than wallow in grisly details. “How do you reckon with somebody who puts you on a hot radiator, burns your skin and later on gives you hugs, telling you how much they love you? Many of my...

The new documentary “Crazy, Not Insane,” about Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis‘s work assessing serial killers, is set to premiere Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 9/8c on HBO. The doc finds Dr. Lewis discussing her firsthand experiences analyzing famous murderers like Ted Bundy, Mark David Chapman and Joseph Paul Franklin. As described by HBO, “this provocative documentary explores, like a scientific detective story, Dr. Lewis’s lifelong attempts to look beyond the grisly details of homicides into the hearts and minds of the killers themselves.”

Directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney and narrated by Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern, the film is indeed a fascinating look into the commonalities of various killers, exploring the specifics of how their childhoods may have had an influence on future disturbing behavior. Dr. Lewis proves to be a compelling storyteller even as we see her thorough work be met with dismissal by some of her colleagues.

See‘Crazy,...

“Bigotry and insanity are different,” Psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis says at the beginning of HBO’s documentary Crazy, Not Insane. The idea that someone can kill for perfectly sane, yet irrational reasons goes to the heart of the controversial doctor’s work. Her mother seemed to be able to name every famous anti-Semite. Henry Ford, Richard Wagner, Joe Kennedy and “even Walt Disney,” Lewis lists. The man who made Bambi, which made Lewis cry as a little girl, hated Jews, she bemoans as the film unfolds. You never know what lies underneath even the most innocent appearing exteriors, director Alex Gibney’s documentary, highlights.

The documentary then cuts to one of Dr. Lewis’ earliest cases, the serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. He preferred to be called a multiple slayer. While Lewis explains how she hoped, at the time of her interviews, she would not be prejudiced, the documentary explores...

Crazy, Not Insane HBO Documentary Films and streaming on HBO Max Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Alex Gibney Writer: Alex Gibney Cast: Dorothy Lewis, Laura Dern (narrator), Park Dietz, Catherine Yeager Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 10/26/20 Opens: November 18, 2020 October 2020 is closing on what […]

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“Crazy, Not Insane,” the new HBO documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side”), is a sprawling, fascinating look at the psychology of murderers. We see most of the film through the eyes of Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a notable psychiatrist who has assessed a number of high-profile killers like Ted Bundy, Mark David Chapman, Arthur Shawcross and Joseph Paul Franklin. From early on in the doc, it is clear that Dr. Lewis’s approach is more focused on what happened in the killer’s childhood that would cause them to kill rather than the specifics of the murder itself.

Seehbo’s Roy Cohn documentary ‘Bully. Coward. Victim.’ is a uniquely personal look at Trump’s former lawyer

Lewis posits that in most of the cases she has worked on, there has been some kind of childhood trauma in the murderer’s past, which can lead to a dissociative identity disorder.

Psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis is an influential and controversial figure. She interviewed Ted Bundy four times in 1986 at the request of the defense. Dr. Lewis pioneered psychiatric legal avenues by exploring trauma as root causes of horrific crimes in many cases. HBO’s upcoming Crazy, Not Insane will explore Dr. Lewis’ “lifelong attempts to look beyond the grisly details of homicides into the hearts and minds of the killers themselves,” according to the advance press. The documentary debuts Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 9 pm.

Directed and produced by Oscar-winner Alex Gibney, Crazy, Not Insane seeks to challenge “the very notion of evil and proposing that murderers are made not born,” according to the press statement. The documentary, which includes videotaped death row interviews, examines formative experiences and neurological dysfunction as contributing factors in crimes of serial killers such as Bundy and Arthur Shawcross.

The videotapes of her interviews reveal the way...

‘The Iceman’ dares to explore the family life of one of the most notorious mob killers of all time.

From 1948 to 1986 the infamous mob hitman Richard Kuklinski claims to have murdered as many as 250 people, mostly in the greater New York area. Some of them for money, many just for fun. At the April 29 premiere of Millenium Entertainment’s drama about the killer’s life, The Iceman, hosted by Grey Goose, the question posed was this: can a savage murderer for hire also be a genuine family man?

James Franco‘s answer to that question might be a strong, maybe. The Oz The Great And Powerful actor makes a brief cameo as a small-time porn director who meets a swift but sadistic end at the hands of Kuklinski. Franco was initially slated to play a much larger role as another cold character, Kuklinski’s ice-cream truck driving accomplice, Mr. Freezy,...

Law & Order veteran Rene Balcer is busy with two projects targeted for fall 2007. He has received a put pilot commitment from NBC for a crime drama as well as a script commitment with penalty from Fox for a cop show that Jonathan Mostow is on board to direct and executive produce. Both projects hail from NBC Universal TV Studio, where Balcer and his Mattawin Co. have an overall deal. The NBC drama, which Balcer is writing and executive producing, centers on a bipolar forensic psychiatrist. It is inspired by the work of well-known forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, who has served as a consultant on the Law & Order series. A frequent witness for the prosecution at high-profile criminal trials, Dietz is described in a magazine profile as "part medical examiner, part private detective, part scholar of the bizarre."...