First Person — Season 1, Episode 9: In the Kingdom of the Unabomber
Documentary, News • 24 min • 2 seasons, 19 episodes • ★ 8.3/10
Episode synopsis
Gay Greenberg was a psychotherapist that wanted to become a writer. His career as a writer lead to nowhere, and he decided to seek help from a famous author. This is why he started to correspond with Ted Kaczynski, not knowing that he was the notorious Unabomber. Instead of finding help on his career as an author, Greenberg found himself dragged into Kaczynski's paranoid nightmare.
About First Person
First Person was an American TV series produced and directed by Errol Morris. The show engaged a varied group of individuals from civil advocates to criminals. Interviews were conducted with "The Interrotron", a device similar to a teleprompter: Errol and his subject each sit facing a camera. The image of each person's face is then projected onto a two-way mirror positioned in front of the lens of the other's camera. Instead of looking at a blank lens, then, both Morris and his subject are looking directly at a human face. Morris believes that the machine encourages monologue in the interview process, while also encouraging the interviewees to "express themselves to camera".