The Staircase Documentary Filmmakers Feel ‘Betrayed’ By Inaccuracies In HBO Max Series

Central to de Lestrade, Brunet, Stevenson, and producer Allyson Luchak’s objections are the depiction of Brunet in the fifth upcoming episode of “The Staircase,” set to air on Thursday, May 19, 2022. In real life, Brunet became involved in a romantic relationship with Peterson, but she and the other three crew members, as well as Peterson’s defense attorney, David Rudolf (played in the miniseries by Michael Stuhlbarg) say that the relationship did not develop until after she had exited the project, leaving Stevenson and Jean-Pierre Bloc to take over as editors. 

By the time Brunet edited the final three episodes, released on Netflix in 2018, she says she and Peterson had broken up. The fifth episode of the miniseries, however, suggests that she was editing while they were together and that she edited all eight of the original docuseries episodes. She told Vanity Fair:

“My relationship with Michael never affected my editing. I never, ever cut anything out that would be damaging for him. I have too big an opinion of my job to be even remotely tempted to do anything like that. And Jean would never let it happen anyway. It is his film and I respect that greatly. And again: I had absolutely no dog in the fight for the first eight episodes. As for the following ones, I think one can notice a great empathy for Michael’s family in them. But that was Jean’s point of view as well as mine. Whatever you think or believe about Michael, you can’t deny that the situation for his children was terrible and unfair. As for the last three episodes, I could not possibly be suspected of wanting to favor Michael, since we had broken up before I finished editing.”

Obviously, being romantically involved with your documentary subject presents a conflict of interest, but what further complicates matters is that Brunet opened her own home to the makers of the miniseries, who appear to have taken some artistic license in their dramatization.

“The Staircase” docuseries is currently streaming on Netflix, while “The Staircase” miniseries is now streaming on HBO Max.