Marc Smerling

Marc Smerling is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and director.[1] He was nominated for an Oscar for Capturing the Friedmans in 2003, and co-wrote and produced The Jinx, a six-part HBO documentary on suspected murderer Robert Durst.[2] He directed the FX docuseries A Wilderness of Error based on the book of the same name.[3]

Education

Smerling attended S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and has earned a Master of Arts degree in film production from University of Southern California.[4]

Career

Early in his career, Smerling was the associate producer of NBC's Gangs, Cops and Drugs with Tom Brokaw, and The New Hollywood. He then founded production company Notorious Pictures, producing and directing more than a hundred television commercials and music videos.[5]

Smerling partnered up with Andrew Jarecki to form their own production company Hit the Ground Running. He produced 2003's Capturing the Friedmans, which was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and 2010's documentary film Catfish,[6] which inspired the television series Catfish: The TV Show.

In 2010, Smerling produced and wrote his first narrative feature film All Good Things, starring Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst and Frank Langella, about the suspected murderer and real estate scion Robert Durst. The film was the predecessor to the 2015 HBO documentary miniseries The Jinx, which Smerling co-wrote and produced with Andrew Jarecki and Zachary Stuart-Pontier.[7] He won the 2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary Series and was nominated for Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming.[8]

Smerling and Stuart-Pontier co-created the podcast Crimetown, which debuted in 2016 and quickly became the most popular U.S. podcast on iTunes. Each season of Crimetown examines how organized crime shaped an American city, starting with Providence, Rhode Island, in season one.[9] They also co-created The RFK Tapes a Crimetown Presents podcast about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.[10] In 2022, he hosted a 15-part podcast series focused on the Mahoning Valley mafia and Congressman Jim Traficant called "Crooked City: Youngstown OH."[11]

Filmography

Film
Year Title Producer Writer
2003 Capturing the Friedmans Yes
2010 All Good Things Yes Yes
2010 Catfish Yes

Television
Year Title Director Producer Writer Cinematographer
2013 Catfish: The TV Show Yes
2015 The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst Yes Yes Yes
2020 A Wilderness of Error Yes Yes

References
  1. "Marc Smerling - IMDb". IMDb. Archived from the original on 2019-02-26. Retrieved 2018-07-01.
  2. "'The Jinx' creators cancel interviews, release statement | EW.com". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 2015-03-18. Retrieved 2015-03-23.
  3. N'Duka, Amanda (2020-04-24). "Emmy Winner, 'All Good Things' Writer-Producer Marc Smerling Launches Truth Media". Deadline. Archived from the original on 2020-05-08. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  4. "Marc Smerling — KCRW". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-03-23.
  5. "Who's Who — THE JINX". Archived from the original on 2015-04-17. Retrieved 2015-06-29.
  6. Longworth, Karina. "Doc or Not, Catfish Is Stranger Than Fiction". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on 16 January 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  7. "Marc Smerling - Biography - IMDb". IMDb. Archived from the original on 2016-03-19. Retrieved 2018-07-01.
  8. "Marc Smerling | Television Academy". Archived from the original on 2015-09-29. Retrieved 2015-09-28.
  9. Ducker, Eric (13 December 2016). "Not-So-Divine Providence". The Ringer.
  10. "Marc Smerling, Zac Stuart-Pontier, and the Expanding Web of Crimetown". Interview Magazine. 2017-03-20. Retrieved 2020-10-18.
  11. "Crooked City: Youngstown, OH on Apple Podcasts". 7 November 2022.
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