Sundance preview: Why the O.J. Simpson story still fascinates us

Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Ezra Edelman spent the past eight months living with the O.J. Simpson story, and he has no doubt why Americans are still fascinated by it.

"Because we don't know the answer," he said. "We all assume we know the truth. But the guy will never admit, if he in fact committed murder, that he committed murder. At this point, 75 percent of America — black and white — actually believes he committed those crimes, and he has never admitted that.

"I think the lack of resolution speaks a lot to us being still fascinated by it."

Edelman ("Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals," "Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush") is bringing his 7 ½-hour documentary "O.J.: Made in America" to Sundance, where it will screen in its entirety. It will air as a five-part series on ESPN in June.

And while it's about the 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, it's about much more than that. It's about O.J.'s life up to that point; why his implication in the murders shocked the nation; his life after the not-guilty verdict; and how the events played out on a backdrop of larger issues.

"The story is really O.J. and us," Edelman said. "We all engage in this story in a very visceral way. Whether it's based on gender, based on race, based on celebrity, based on sports — whatever. This story is never going away."

More than two decades later, what's been lost is that — before the murders — Simpson was a beloved sports and entertainment figure.

"You have to connect with him emotionally to understand how shocking and heartbreaking it was for this to have happened," Edelman said. "Now, if you ask somebody, 'Who's O.J.?' they'll say, 'Isn't he that football player who killed his wife?' "

At the time, he was seen as the ultimate good guy. A football hero. A star of television commercials. A star of the "Naked Gun" movie comedies.

"He's just famous," Edelman said. "Unabashedly, from the time he was a child, he wanted to be famous. That was his ambition in life. He grew up watching Burt Lancaster movies. He wanted to be an American hero. That came in spades, but that was his addiction. He was addicted to fame."

And Simpson became "exponentially more famous during his murder trial when he was on TV every day and our country was rapt with it. So he comes out the other side — he's the most famous person in America."

And among the most reviled. Edelman pointed to a 2015 poll that found that Simpson remains one of the most hated men in America.

"I understand that he killed two people. Potentially. Maybe. Probably," he said. "But most hated man in America because he killed two people? No. That's not why. It's because he went back out in the world and lived his life and refused to admit that he did it. That's what pissed people off."

Simpson was found liable for the murders in a 1997 civil trial, which ruined him financially. He's been in prison in Nevada, convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping charges, since 2008.

That's part of what Edelman focuses on in the documentary. But it's more about the cultural phenomenon and an attempt to understand why "to this day, opinions still break down on racial lines. So if nothing else, I would like for you to emotionally and viscerally understand why black people reacted that way to the verdict."

It is, perhaps, easier to understand now than it was 20 years ago — put in the context of the African-American community that had "lived at the mercy of the brutal and, at some points, racist police department" in Los Angeles.

"I do think that you can make a case that 1994-95 in Los Angeles … was about the best time O.J. could have been tried for murder," Edelman said. "If you have lived through what this community of people lived through, time and time again, then I think you can be forgiven for investing in O.J.'s innocence the way they did."

His documentary is not, however, an indictment of the police, the prosecutors or anyone else.

"I think the police might have done some stuff that was untoward," Edelman said. "Now, at the same time, I think it's a very cynical approach that the defense took. It was smart, but it was cynical. There's no way around it. So that's what makes the story complicated.

"As a black person telling the story, it's complicated. I have feelings on both sides."

spierce@sltrib.com

Twitter: @ScottDPierce

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'O.J.: Made In America'

Screens Friday, Jan. 22, at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City: Part 1 at 11:15 a.m., Part 2 at 7:15 p.m. A Q&A with filmmaker Ezra Edelman follows.