Nick Broomfield returns to the scene of a crime.

“It’s no surprise that people lose their minds and want to die in that situation. And then of course they make sure you can only die on their terms, when they say so. When I made the first film, Old Sparky was still there and the chair was really old, the insides coming out - kind of coconut hair - and I said to them, ‘Can’t you afford a new chair?’ And they said, ‘Oh no, we want this chair here ‘cos it reminds them this is as low as they can go.’ It’s hard not to be affected by that when you’re making the documentary.”

Death Row has clearly left its mark on Nick Broomfield. His first encounter with American justice was in 1992’s Aileen: The Selling Of A Serial Killer, charting the tragic, violent life of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute turned multiple murderer, sentenced to death and exploited by all and sundry for her story.

Ten years later Broomfield was dragged back into the saga, subpoenaed along with his film, at Wuornos’ final appeal. Shocked to find a haunted, half-crazy woman rebuking her own witnesses and claiming to have killed in cold blood rather than her original plea of self-defence, Broomfield felt bound to resume his investigation. Wuornos even requested he film her final, ranting statements.

“It was unnerving and uncomfortable,” Broomfield admits. “It was very much Aileen who set the agenda.” Playing down his usual jokey, faux naïve on-camera antics, Broomfield seems unsure about his protagonist’s real guilt but clear on the issue of the death penalty.

“I think there’s been a downward trend of American society being less caring about people, and somehow Aileen’s life encapsulated that,” he asserts. “Nobody with any capital is ever on Death Row, just the poor and mentally unstable. It’s important that something comes out of this.” Certainly Aileen Wuornos never can. Leigh Singer 21 November 03

Aileen: Life And Death Of A Serial Killer, on selected release 21 November 03.

useful link: nick broomfield: aileen