CSI
Only the dead body knows the murderer…
The dead body in front of the door looks horrible. The legs are gone, the limbs are turned in bizarre directions, the hair is torn out. For hours the bodies been lying in the sun. When the ex- cop came to work this morning, he didn’t graze it with a single look. Plastic. Old requisite. Children’s stuff. He took his glasses out, dived out of the scorching sun of California into the darkness of one of those huge halls, made his coffee at the usual place, greeted the usual people, stood at his usual place. The place where he can watch the blond the best.
Mike Scott loved his job as a police officer. More then 25 years he was with the LAPD, the Los Angeles Police Department, fought gangs, was a prison warden, helped securing evidence, worked with the sheriffs, in homicide, one year he even was undercover and bought weapons and coke. The job was hard, he says, eyes glued to the blonde, but he felt he was doing the right thing. When retiring two years ago, he didn’t want anything to do anymore with dead body water, gun smoke residue and DNA- analysis. But he had completely underestimated how popular death is. A former colleague called him. Mike, she said, we need you.
Hollywood needs you.
And so it is that Mike Scott is in these dark studio halls of Manhattan Beach, a beach suburb of Los Angeles. He advises the makers of CSI, like this one colleague that Mike used to do patrol with back in the 70s, who is now one of the producers of the hit series. Or like this other ex- cop, who used to be a biologist at Mike’s crime scenes and is now writing screenplays for CSI. CSI stand for Criminal Scene Investigation, and this is, what Mike did all his life. Solve crimes, analyse trace, get dead bodies to talk with the help of antiquated grips and ingenious high technology. The series, called to life seven years ago, is now one of the most successful series in the world, and it’s in no small detail due to the fact that people like Mike are supervising it.
Of course, on the tv it is never as it is in reality, but the details are right, the science is up to date, the cases are often inspired by real ones. “Often I sat in front of the tv and thought to myself, That was one of my cases!” Mike says, then he excuses himself for a moment and goes over to the blonde. An interrogation scene is filmed; she’s supposed to take her gun out of the halter and hand it to one of the uniforms, before she interrogates the suspect. The actress Emily Procter, one of the stars of CSI:MI, had held the gun a bit too lax, in Mike’s opinion. His paw clasps the weapon like a banana, that’s how you do it, and in passing by he whispers to the extra that his shirt is hanging out of his trousers. Are the millions of viewers- in Germany alone CSI:MI had 5.78m last week- supposed to think that America’s law enforcement officers are slobs?
CSI is, and Mike knows that of course, way more than a series where bad boys are caught. CSI is a world- wide phenomenon. The heroes- this as an explanation for those who haven’t looked the law into the eyes since Derrick’s lachrymal sacks were the criminiologist’s best eyes *Derrick was one of the most popular German detective series, and he had very big lachrymal sacks*- the heroes are nerds, as you call them in America. Very uncool guys, people of the brains, computer specialists, biologists, chemists, also representatives of such exotic sounding specialities like entomology, the science of everything that crawls, creeps and annoys. Their instruments are microscopes, tweezers, chemical solutions like phenolphthalein- used to determination of blood, and sometimes it’s even simple ones like baseball bats that they use to smash dummies with, whose red heads are filled with red colour. This is how the CSIs investigate the pattern of blood spatter at the crime scene of the body: did the hit come from behind? The body in front of Manhattan Beach was one of those unfortunate victims.
In every episode you can see how the clever guys find the DNA of the murderer in an carelessly thrown away lollipop, or by way of analysing hair retrace the steps of a kidnapping- victim. Scene by scene they hunker over the rosterelectronic microscope *that’s the best translation I could find*, or over freshly opened chests, where pale lungs are evidence of poisoning. When CBS’ studio boss had the idea for CSI on his desk seven years ago, he was doubtful: “Who wants to see how someone secures a finger print with fingerprint dust and brush?” 300 episodes later it’s obvious: CSI has made the science with all its attention to detail and its version of gibberish Latin cool. Thanks to CSI, the television watching audience now understands what holds the world together at its core.
With promising reliability the latex glove- wearing heroes give us answers to this last of questions. The primal fear of becoming the victim of an act of violence and probably never be revenged, they oppose with the cool methodology. No trace is too old or too cold for them, everything is geared together in their universe of ballistic and infrared- spectroscopy, software and rigor mortis. “They don’t speculate, they deliver the evidence,” Ann Donahue, one of the producers of the series, explains the success, “Especially when people don’t know what they should believe in, or whom they should trust, then this security is very soothing. The science is right, basta. Just think about how Bill Clinton claimed he had never had sex with his intern. And then this dress turns up with sperm on it that turned out to be his. Actually,” she adds laughing,” this already was an episode of CSI.”
It seems as though the creators of CSI did not only see the spirit of the age, but also put it onto their metal tables and analysed it into the tiniest detail. The series that premiered in 2000 in the US with very few promotion and even less expectations, grew in the span of three years into an empire of two spin offs (CSI:MI & CSI:NY), with books, computer- and videogames. The multimillion dollar franchise helped the grey- bearded channel CBS to a newer and fresher image, revived careers of such forgotten tv personalities like David Caruso, and inspired dozens of copies.
In the USA, there has been talk for some time of a CSI- effect that series supposedly has on real life: in processes, the jury often demands clear evidence, like they see it week by week in CSI. Now this is an ideal scenario that is rarely the case in court. Recently the actor Robert Blake was accused of murdering his wife, but when he was acquitted not guilty, the jury gave as reasons a missing investigation left doubt of the man’s guilt. The prosecutor’s opinion about the jury: “Exceptionally daft.”
A professor media law from North Carolina published a study according to which the efforts of the series are in favour of the public attorney’s office: more and more juries are apparently assuming that every piece of evidence is the result of intensive investigation; as though in every case of kiosk- mugging, the white- clothed gang arrives, with the credo ‘Dig deeper’. This is at least is the slogan that the crew of CSI:NY gets to hear from their boss on a regular basis. It applies to the whole CSI- family, though; it just doesn’t always apply to the real life. By now there are so- called CSI- lectures before a court case where the members of the jury are told not to expect any scientific wonders, ex- cop and screenwriter Richard Catalani tells giggling.
This idea of a noble team of investigators is the brain child of Anthony E. Zuiker, a studied philosopher. The stout and bespectacled babyface from Las Vegas, an only child that from early on was creating new games and stories, remembers clearly how he got the idea for CSI. Seven years ago he sat on the couch with his pregnant wife, contemplating if he should watch one of Jennifer’s obscure favourite tv- series or go and play a round of basketball. He stayed on the couch. Fortunately. The series was called ‘New York Detectives’ and was a documentary about Medical examiners that solved cold cases with the help of blood drops and hair.
Zuiker was alarmed.
Hadn’t anyone before realised how cool those guys were? The media was always only interested in the act itself, the number of victims, the history of the victims, but not in the tedious forensic work, the retracing of steps and reconstruction of events.
And in police series the hero usually stomps into his office, wolfs down a bagel and then gets a call form ballistics that the bullet is from a police revolver or something like that. How one comes to this revelation remained in the dark. Until now! Zuiker immediately called the LVPD and asked if he could accompany the CSIs for research. For six weeks he was with the graveyard shift, and let the cops tell him the juiciest stories.
The experience of the 37- year- old up to then had been reduced to inventing monologues for an actor friend of his who needed texts for auditions. And he had written a screenplay about a gambler- Zuiker’s mother was a croupier. At least, he had come to Jerry Bruckheimer’s attention. The Hollywood- producer who specialised in action movies,
wanted to jump into the tv- business and needed good stuff. Maybe Zuiker had an idea…? He had. At their first meeting, Zuiker practically attacked him, he acted CSI out in various roles, used the lingo of the morgue and explained a film technique that he called ‘snap zoom’: using computer animation, he wanted to show details like a bullet entering a body or breaking bones; bang boom bang, that was exactly what Bruckheimer had in mind.
The first channel the pair approached, declined. As did the second. The series sounded expensive, the creator was a nobody, his support a newcomer in the tv business. Zuiker was crushed. By now, though, the actor William Peterson- cinema fans may know him from ‘Manhunter’- had read the script and fallen for the role of the CSI- boss; that was who he wanted to play, no- one else. In the meantime, the boss of CBS had wanted William Peterson for years, he wanted him for a tv series, no- one else. So everything came together: the tv newcomer was producing, the nobody was allowed to write, CBS split the costs- and later the success- with the Canadian production firm Alliance Atlantis Communication.
At the first screening for the CBS- boss, finger food was served. On the screen, William Petersen arrives in his CSI- van, marches into the bathroom with the dead body, puts on his glasses and observes a heap of pale wriggling fat maggots, at the moment that Les Moonves shoved a fork of coleslaw into his mouth.
In extreme close- up.
