helen remus is fiction


"Helen came to be because I wanted to tell the story from a victim's point of view. Because there were so many women who weren't found or identified, I felt like that gave me license to create a character who would become someone who was not found, but who could really speak for all the others. I thought that was important for us to emotionally understand her, so that we didn't easily write off these women, as people can be tempted to do. interview by john pielmeier the writer also played gary ridgeway

reply

Damn that sucks. But the movie was based on Reichert's book. There's nothing in his book? So why then have Nat at the end have her daughter with her who she named Helen?? I understand why they did it but it's such a let down.





reply

[deleted]

by - patches67 on Tue Jun 3 2008 23:05:06 what an odd comment! why is it a "letdown" that she was a fictional character, meant to give voice to those who could no longer speak? i thought it was a very effective dramatic device that enabled the audience to understand just a little how a teenager with the same hopes and aspirations as any other girl her age can wind up dead in a ditch with a rock shoved up her vagina. i knew that helen was a composite character all along, and that knowledge didn't make me sympathize with her any less than i would have had she been a real victim of gary ridgeway.

I agree. If anything I was relieved when I found out that she was just a fictional character but it made my heart ache for the women that she actually represented but didnt really get justice or identified.

reply

AmberBaby wrote:

...the movie was based on Reichert's book. There's nothing in his book? So why then have Nat at the end have her daughter with her who she named Helen??
According to the film's writer on his Web site, johnpielmeier.com, the script for The Capture of the Green River Killer is entirely the work of the writer/actor himself:

THE STORY:
This is the story of Detective Dave Reichert’s near-twenty-year search for the notorious Green River Killer, narrated by one of the victims looking back on her troubled life and death and trying to make some sense of it all.

THE BACKSTORY:
Stan Brooks, the producer I’ve worked with more often than with any other and who has been so supportive of me as a writer, sold this piece in about two seconds to ABC. I flew to Seattle and spent some time with Dave Reichert, and wrote the script as an original, doing my own research. (Later, when it was finally produced, it received a “based on” credit; Dave was writing a book at the time I first met with him, and by the time the movie was green-lighted his book had been published and hence the final credit.) ABC soon decided it was no longer in the MOW business, and the project went into limbo-land. A few years later Stan’s office spoke to Lifetime, which had a division devoted to doing low-budget movies. They’d never done a miniseries in that venue, but were up for a try. And so the piece was made on an astoundingly low budget and shot in thirty days. Stan called in some favors and gathered a collection of incredibly talented actors and, under Norma Bailey’s helm as director, ended up with a movie that I am especially proud of.

Page found here: www.johnpielmeier.com/common/news/reports/detail.cfm?QID=6418&clie ntID=11082&classification=report&topicID=0

reply

alot of the movie was fiction except few things here and there some of it was true

reply

She represents about 14 or 15 of the victims they did not find

reply

Think of the movie Titanic - Rose and Jack were fiction - sometimes you need "extra" characters to give a movie some understanding and emotion. As in Titanic - someone from 1st class would never get invovled with someone from 3rd class. But having the two of them get together got you to understand how things were in each class. To have to build seperate characters to get the same point across would make an already long movie even longer. Many movies "based" on true stories combine characters.

Why didn't you write me? Why? It wasn't over for me, I waited for you for seven years.(The Notebook

reply

Helen was a composite character. Composite characters are fictional characters based on a number of people in real life stories. Several based on true story movies have used composite characters to avoid lawsuits or for better dramatic effect.

I thought Helen was well written character. She represented the victims that were never identified or found. She also represented some of the issues the troubled background of many prostitutes. Often times women in that lifestyle came from broken homes but weren't always necessarily bad people. I thought Amy Davidson's acting was pretty good she brought out the vulnerability of a woman who becomes a victim due to her lifestyle.

reply

The whole Helen thing reminded me of Susie Salmon in THE LOVELY BONES

Bite me, fanboy! -- Lobo

reply

Me too. I have the book and the movie .

reply