Review: Cutting Edge: Captive For 18 Years – The Jaycee Lee Story (2009, UK)
The Cutting Edge strand of documentaries on the UK’s independent Channel 4 is 21 years old since its launch and broke new ground as required by its partly public service charter.
This documentary about Jaycee Lee Dugard was recorded when she was found as part of the general media scrum in Autumn 2009 and when repeated last week at the end of her kidnappers’ trial, didn’t even receive a title card update reflecting the conclusion of the case with the sentencing. That omission detracted from its excellent and sensitive handling of the interview with Philip Garrido’s earlier victim and Dugard’s stepfather, who was surprisingly civil (at the time), plus contributions from the police, neighbours and friends.
Being made as the story broke let the film-makers capture the details about the intervening 18 years up until the return of Jaycee Lee Dugard and just before the start of the trial but it wouldn’t have taken much to put a full stop on proceedings with an update to the end. Channel 4 has struck a deal with Youtube to show the documentary in its entirety. The link is here for Youtube and here for Channel 4’s own website, 4oD. If either version cannot be viewed outside the UK, refer to the Google news crawl in the previous story on the subject or the wiki site here.
– CBG
