The Untold Story of Neverland (Part Two)

The documentary “Michael Jackson: The Untold Story of Neverland” has been covered in detail in the news, and you read the first part of this article here.

The text below is a translation of an article published in 2005 in the weekly magazine Newsweek.

Larry Nimmer prepared two videos for Michael Jackson’s defense team, which were shown in court over two days and were accompanied by explanations from Nimmer while he testified. One of these videos was a tour of Neverland so the jury could get a feel for the place. The second video was a test Larry Nimmer conducted regarding the warning bell on the hallway leading to Michael’s bedroom at Neverland. In one scene of this video, a message from Michael’s daughter, Paris, could be seen on a chalkboard in the kitchen, saying “I love you, Dad... get well soon” (at the time, Michael was suffering from nervous back pain and spasms.) After the film was played in court, the prosecutor tried to neutralize its impact. However, Judge Melville had explained that since he had refused the defense attorneys’ request to take the jury to Neverland, he had decided to show the film in court instead.

For his 19-minute video of Neverland, Larry Nimmer filmed 2,700 acres of natural scenery and gardens, an amusement park, a lake, and a zoo. No children were shown in the video, but the jury was given the opportunity to sit and watch images of statues of children playing and drawings depicting Michael with children. Nimmer also carefully filmed Michael’s library. Books such as the Bible, a child-care guide, luxury photo books about cinema and animation, and books about Mickey Mouse, Michelangelo, and the Third Reich.

The text below is a translation of an article published in 2005 on vcreporter.com.

Larry Nimmer said that Michael was more natural and normal than everyone thinks.

While preparing his videos at Neverland, Larry Nimmer realized that perhaps the understanding people and the media have of Michael Jackson in their minds is incorrect. He began to doubt whether some people’s belief in the accusations against Jackson might stem from sensational media and the traditional, conservative culture of American society.

“My personal opinion is that no, he (Michael) is not guilty.”

Tom Friedman, Nimmer’s assistant, agrees and says: “When I entered Neverland, after five minutes I was convinced that Jackson was innocent and generous, with a big heart.”

Nimmer did not want to use any filming tricks to influence viewers while making his videos at Neverland. The video they produced portrayed a beautiful, surprisingly cautious place. According to Nimmer and Friedman, this was the truth that existed at Neverland.

Friedman says:
“There were no bad images of children. There was nothing pornographic on the bookshelves. I didn’t see anything that would make me think that if the jury saw it, it would cost Michael dearly.”

Neverland

Jackson was not present at Neverland, and his children were kept away from the jury at their request. But Nimmer was allowed to peek into every place. He rode the Neverland train, went to the amusement park and the zoo, ate in the family dining room, and entered Michael’s house—the place where he and his children lived.

“The prosecutor had described Neverland as a place where only bad things happened. But it was a very normal place. A beautiful mansion.”

His video confirmed this. Contrary to what we imagine—an imaginary, colorful fantasy like the landscapes in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Tim Burton—Neverland is a down-to-earth place. A normal road with short fences leads visitors into gently rippling meadows, a pleasant lake and marsh, and dense, green trees. The main path is only slightly wider and has just one guard who watches visitors from atop his tower.

Jackson’s house is a mansion in the style of the English royal family, in brown and red colors. The amusement park is impressive, but not chaotic or wild. The zoo is a bit different compared to the stables and barns scattered around Neverland: instead of big and small horses, there are giraffes and monkeys. And the train—built with taste and quietly—looks more like a real train than an amusement-park train.

There is a large movie theater at Neverland, with a lobby covered in Disney movie posters and free candies and lollipops. But visitors also receive free toys and sweets at the train station.

However, in the video, none of these things are shown as unusual. The only unusual thing is that all these items and facilities are gathered in one place, as if they were made for people who don’t even live there.

The only thing that seemed a little strange to Nimmer was that the music playing through the speakers never stopped for a moment.

“It was simple and happy music. At first it was a bit fun, but then it became boring. I’d like to know what his children do in this place.”

On the other hand, Nimmer and his team were impressed by the beauty and calm of Neverland and the fact that it wasn’t really that strange. Especially Friedman, who had previously imagined that “a man lives there, immersed in his own small, imaginary world, while the world is filled with sadness and poverty. With this money, better things could be done.”

But when Friedman entered Neverland, it became clear to him that the property was built for ordinary people—not to satisfy Jackson’s childish sense of wonder or fantasies, and not to lure children or abuse them.

The amusement park was clearly built to serve a large number of children, and according to Friedman, many of them arrived at the property on fancy buses that Michael had arranged for them. Buses that did not seem to be used for personal purposes.

Friedman thinks to himself, “This man doesn’t ride a carousel every night.”

Nimmer’s video shows a small, simple play area behind Michael’s house made of wood. This is where Michael and his children spent their time. Friedman says, “These things exist in all public parks.”

“My opinion is that he spends more time with his children in this place than at that amusement park.”

Nimmer and Friedman say this park was built for the same reason Michael had said: a 700-acre imaginative space for sick and disadvantaged children who don’t have the chance to experience such things.

Friedman, having seen these things with his own eyes, said it was very painful that Jackson was being talked about with insults and humiliation for something that was truly wonderful.

“Although this property is his private place, he has made it available for public use. Who does that? Tom Cruise? Does Bill Gates do that? Does Steven Spielberg do that? Does Barbra Streisand do that? Who makes all this land and property accessible to the public—accessible to children?”

Friedman continues: “Oh, it’s very, very unique. He sacrificed his privacy and seclusion to make this happen.”

The House

Nimmer says that going inside Michael’s mansion made things clearer for the filming team. The video, surprisingly, showed the house as mature rather than childish, with decorations of gold and heavy furniture in the style of the French royal family. It showed Michael’s paintings on the walls among the children, and Nimmer’s team agrees. There was no sign of an interest in child abuse in these paintings.

And although the prosecutor tried to make the mannequins in the house look bad, Nimmer says those dolls—one of them a full-size butler holding a plate of food, and the other a child playing on a chair—seemed fun and entertaining.

Friedman agrees and adds that the mannequins were not threatening. “If he has the money and likes them, then why not? I don’t think it’s evil or abnormal, or that it means the owner is a sexual predator.” He compares Michael’s interest in these mannequins to other people’s interest in collecting coins, photos, or dogs.”

Friedman also points out that although the house was large, it wasn’t excessive. The rooms were normal-sized, without extravagance, and completely comfortable.

“In the places where Michael was present at certain times and came down from the spacious balcony stairs, there were no grand rooms and no mirrored dance hall. It felt more like a farmhouse than a palace.”

And both of them agree that signs of a real life were felt throughout the house. From the clothes of Jackson’s children hanging on hooks in the hallway to the sound of their small laughs reaching Friedman and Larry as they ate lunch upstairs.

Photos of the children were everywhere in the house. But some of them were turned toward the wall so the camera wouldn’t capture their images. And that was Michael’s request—to protect his family’s privacy.

Outside the house, in the grassy yard, there were tricycles that had been used again and again.

Friedman says: “The scooters and small, battered bikes were completely normal. It showed that ordinary children lived there. He could have bought each of his children a tricycle made of gold and equipped with a jet engine. But he only got them regular tricycles. That shows this man has a very human side.”

Nimmer agrees with Friedman. He made sure that the images of these tricycles, the children’s clothes, and even the message Paris, Michael’s daughter, wrote on the chalkboard for him—“I love you even more than this... get well soon”—were captured by his camera.

“I wanted to convey this truth to the jury: that he is a father, and those children are real beings with a real relationship with each other.”

Nimmer says that by watching videos recorded by Michael’s private videographer during Martin Bashir’s interview with Michael, he realized how close Michael was to his children and how much he loved talking about them—something that never makes it to the media.

“Bashir didn’t show many of the positive and good things about Michael.”

In Court

Nimmer says: “I was surprised by how the media, with so little information, creates such stories. When they have nothing to report, they spend their time storytelling—and that comes at the cost of a human life.”

Nimmer says the media set off the myth of Michael being strange and possibly child-friendly. Nimmer, who had seen many Jackson interviews like his interview with Martin Bashir, and had cut and used parts of them, believes Jackson cultivated a childlike, innocent nature within himself to create his music, dance, and humanitarian activities.

“People in our country tend to be very traditional and skeptical, and they think that because Michael Jackson is childlike, he must be an idiot. I think being childlike is energizing and refreshing. I’m upset that people automatically push him aside because of his childlike traits.”

Nimmer and his team believed the accusations against Michael didn’t make sense. For example, the accuser’s mother claimed that despite her wishes, she had been held captive at Neverland without knowing what time of day it was. But Nimmer’s video showed a guest mansion where this woman had stayed and could easily leave whenever she wanted. Clocks were installed throughout the property, and the employees, servants, and guards looked far too ordinary and down-to-earth to carry out an abduction operation or a conspiracy.

“I didn’t see any hidden cameras on the walls or among the trees. I didn’t see any hunting dogs or electric fences. I didn’t see any pits or spears.” Friedman says, “That woman could have walked along the road, climbed over the fences, and left Neverland.”

One of the accusations raised by the accuser’s brother was that he had seen Michael touching his brother inappropriately in the bedroom. But Jackson’s defense team stated that if the accuser’s brother had come close to that location, the warning system installed around Michael’s bedroom would have sounded. And as a result, it would have been impossible for the accuser’s brother. This truth was shown in Nimmer’s video, discrediting the accuser’s family story.

The prosecution claimed that Jackson’s house was full of pornographic magazines. But when Nimmer saw Michael’s library, he was faced with 200,000 books covering topics from art history to old Hollywood books, child-rearing, and religion. And that was only part of Michael’s collection of 700,000 books.

Another of Nimmer’s assistants said that after seeing a video of the accuser’s mother saying “I trust Michael so much”—while she thought the camera was off—he could no longer believe the story that they were imprisoned at Neverland.

The Man

Nimmer, Friedman, and other members of the filming team were confident they were working for the right purpose, and in the middle of the process they learned even more about Michael.

Nimmer, who had actually met Jackson once—the same day Nimmer testified in court and then Michael thanked him for his film—describes Michael as shy, humble, and kind, and says he was taller than Nimmer had imagined. “I thought he was a short man.”

By watching the films and videos, Nimmer and his team stepped into different aspects of the star’s life. The way his father treated him as a child. His generosity as a child—spending the money he earned from his performances to buy snacks for the neighborhood children—and perhaps it was a practical exercise for his bigger generosity as an adult. And Jackson’s constant insistence on correcting Martin Bashir’s wording—where Bashir says he likes sleeping with children.

“When you say sleeping, it sounds like you mean a sexual relationship. But what I mean by sleeping is that I share my bed with someone else, because he doesn’t like being alone when he sleeps.”

And just like the jury, the filming team came to a unanimous conclusion: “Michael is not guilty.”

Beyond that, they learned about the land Michael came from.

“I don’t think sleeping with children in one bed is necessarily wrong.” Nimmer says this, recalling that at camp he shared his tent with his son and his friends. “It was like a sleepover. And clearly there was nothing sexual involved.”

Friedman agrees.

“I don’t see a problem with him wanting to share his bed with children.” Friedman, who loved sleeping next to his grandfather as a child, continues, “It’s a pleasant experience. I think it’s very intimate.”

In the end, Nimmer is saddened by the trouble that was caused to Michael—only because he wanted to help children and enjoy their peaceful, comforting company.

“Taking the life of a superstar and then putting it under the control of the media, using a story like this, is an unbelievable trick. And I believe it exists. And I think the jury believes it too.”

Source: eMJey.com / Larry Nimmer