Running the Gauntlet

In one of the 72 interviews director Ezra Edelman conducted for his extraordinary documentary series O.J.: Made in America, journalist Celia Farber, who met with Simpson on numerous occasions in preparation for a 1998 Esquire magazine cover story, recalls that the football star-turned-actor could be so charismatic that it was not unusual for people dubious of his honesty, his sincerity — even his innocence of the murders of his former wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman — to succumb to his charms.

Farber describes the phenonomenon as getting "OJ.'d."

In terms of critical response and ratings performance, audiences were OJ.'d, and then some, by The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. When it wrapped its 10-episode FX run in April, the limited series — with a cast that includes Cuba Gooding, Jr., Sarah Paulson, David Schwimmer, John Travolta and Courtney B. Vance — had received glowing reviews and was cable's most-watched new show of 2016.

More accolades are expected for O.J.: Made in America, a five-part, seven-hour-and-forty-three-minute opus produced by ESPN as part of its award-winning 30 for 30 franchise.

The first episode will air on ABC June 11, with the remaining installments running on ESPN the following week. Unlike its FX predecessor, which focused exclusively on the murder trial, Made in America melds themes of race, class, wealth, media and celebrity into a dazzling, at times disturbing examination of Simpson's life and the culture that shaped him.

Along the way, it chronicles his journey from the housing projects of San Francisco's Potrero Hill district, where his greatest dream was not transcendence on the football field, but the fame that would come if he achieved it, to the affluent Brentwood section of Los Angeles, where his wealth and celebrity made his race an afterthought, to a state prison in Nevada, where he is serving a 33-year sentence for kidnapping and armed robbery.

The charges relate to an incident in which he and three others sought to retrieve some of his sports memorabilia from a Las Vegas hotel room.

In a methodical style not unlike the gradual building of a court case, Edelman presents a man awash in contrasts: selfless and narcissistic, fun-loving and brooding, benevolent and violent. An accretion of incisive details — not only about Simpson, but the communities around him — provide invaluable context.

For all of its power on a sociological and psychological level, Made in America is especially gripping as a true-crime saga. Though not introduced until the third episode, the murders and the ensuing trial are examined in detail, with recollections from such familiar figures as former prosecutor Marcia Clark, former L.A. district attorney Gil Garcetti and former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman.

Most vivid is a section in which former assistant D.A. William Hodgman details how the murders took place, accompanied by grisly crime-scene photos that may have faced a hurdle with the networks' standards-and-practices departments, but are crucial to grasping the carnage of the attacks.

For ESPN, Made in America takes the vaunted 30 for 30 brand to a new level. The sports net is so high on the project — which screened in its entirety at the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals — that in May it received a limited theatrical release for Oscar eligibility.

The response "has far surpassed what we ever imagined," says Connor Schell, senior vice-president and executive producer of ESPN Films and original content. "But that's a tribute to the quality of the work. Although it has multiple parts [on television], Ezra constructed it as one film. And it supports a seven-and-a-half-hour length. But when audiences experience this film, they're riveted."

"When you screen something, there's a sense of wanting people to be revved up and excited," adds Edelman, who has received two Sports Emmys and a Peabody for previous documentaries for ESPN and HBO.

"Then I realize that when you're done, for instance, with part two, you've spent 45 minutes watching Rodney King getting beaten, then Nicole talking about the abuse she suffered from O.J., then the riots, and then the lead-up to the murders, and I think, 'Well, that wasn't very uplifting.' So you may hope that people will say, 'This is amazing!' But people are properly saying, 'Man, I just went through this gauntlet of emotions.'

"It's one of the more dramatic stories of our time," he concludes, "but it's a pretty depressing, heavy tale. So if people are engaged by it, it means we did something right."