Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/957795
44 DGA QUARTERLY H O D U N I T A N D W H Y ? For millennia, those questions have driven storytellers to obsess over crimes, real or imagined, showcasing the darkest recesses of human nature. And while it's hard enough to concoct fictional thrill- ers, the challenges multiply when television directors risk objections from real-life survivors by recreating heinous crimes that actually happened. The 1984 miniseries Fatal Vision set a riveting precedent for the genre in its account of how Army officer Jeffrey MacDonald killed his pregnant wife and two kids in 1970. But even now, from prison, MacDonald insists he's innocent. Decades later, NBC's 2015-2016 Aquarius, a detective series that incorporated stories about Charles Manson and his cult, sparked protests from Debra Tate for its "in- sensitive" portrayal of her sister Sharon Tate's murder. But the true crime genre galvanized the public two years ago when The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story attracted viewers by the droves and won the outstanding limited series Emmy for depicting the "crime of the century" and its aftermath. Since then, real-crime anthologies have proliferated. Earlier this year, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story examined serial killer Andrew Cunanan's backstory; Waco serialized the le- thal assault on Branch Davidian leader David Koresh's compound; Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. connected TRUE CRIME TV W THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF The directors behind three fact-based murder dramas walk the tightrope between reality and dramatic license BY H U G H H A R T PHOTO: MALCOLM PAYNE/GETTY IMAGES