Alexa: It’s no wonder John du Pont and the wrestling team he sponsored at his Foxcatcher Farm have been the subject of multiple documentaries, books and an Academy Award-nominated film. It’s a story that begins with athletic excellence and camaraderie and ends in inexplicable tragedy, with a successful wrestler’s life cut short by the man who championed his talents for years. The real-life events are more compelling than initially depicted in the Netflix documentary “Team Foxcatcher,” which chronicles du Pont’s interest in the sport, the launch of Team Foxcatcher, du Pont’s increasingly erratic behavior and the murder of Olympic gold medalist Dave Schultz. The film is essentially one part sports documentary and one part true crime saga, and the narrative feels a bit tentative and clunky during the former. But the filmmakers seem to settle into their element once the focus shifts to du Pont’s bizarre tendencies, the team’s growing discomfort and Schultz’s death. At that point it becomes an unbearably sad portrait of this dedicated athlete and family man whose life ended for no reason, and a thoughtful exploration of mental illness. The film raises some interesting questions about how complicit those surrounding du Pont were in the escalation of his behavioral issues – it alleges some may have done nothing because of du Pont’s wealth and power, while others didn’t want to accept the extent of his downward spiral because they considered him a close friend. Ultimately, “Team Foxcatcher” is a somewhat inconsistent presentation that made me want to explore the 2014 narrative film “Foxcatcher” and ESPN’s 30 for 30 doc “The Prince of Pennsylvania.”
Joel: If you want to explore the story of John du Pont, there is no shortage of ways that you can experience the story. Team Foxcatcher, is one of two documentaries that was released around the same time (the other being The Prince of Pennsylvania, which was in the ESPN 30 for 30 lineup). There is also the Oscar nominated dramatic adaptation, as well as multiple books detailing the events that lead to the eventual death of Dave Schultz. So I guess one of the questions to answer is why watch this particular documentary over any other version of the story. What’s really captivating about this particular documentary is the unbelievably large amount of home movie footage used to tell the story.
You have to remember, that these events took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s, just around the time where home video cameras were becoming a common thing. As a result there is a ton of footage of people just hanging around on Foxcatcher Farm. Footage from birthday parties and hunting trips, to footage of people just goofing around outside or in the car. The footage, and the sheer amount of it, it able to build up the wrestler’s personalities and their relationships with one another better than a series of talking heads ever could.
It’s a captivating story, which is why it can stand to be told so many different times in so many different formats. I would take Team Foxcatcher not as the most complete or ideal version of this story, but rather as a piece of the puzzle, that can be used with the other movies, documentaries, and books to create a complete picture of what happened on Foxcatcher Farm.
Chris: I had previously seen both the film and the Prince of Pennsylvania documentary (which I ultimately thought was the better documentary compared to Team Foxcatcher) so it was hard to watch this without seeing red flag after red flag that's easy to spot knowing the outcome. Ultimately, story of this unfortunate murder centers around exactly what people are willing to overlook as long as the bills get paid or as long as someone else is paying those bills. John du Pont is the classic story of a loner that lacked a childhood and thought his money could buy him friendship with the cool kids and when he perceived that plan to go south, he went to an unspeakable extreme. Clearly it's a strange and surreal story with a ton of footage and that's why we've seen so many films made about it within the last couple years. It's a documentary that I found myself just staring blankly at because it's all so bizarre that I could barely wrap my mind around it and every time I was something about this story, I find myself wishing one person would've convinced everyone else to leave the property.
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