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I thought about doing this episode very soon after starting this podcast. Ferne Pearlstein and Bob Edwards made a documentary more than a decade ago called “The Last Laugh” which talked about how comedy can tackle a tragedy as immense as the Holocaust and what lessons that might suggest for effectively communicating about crime. They interviewed basically every comedy legend you could think of and it’s an incredible film that will make you laugh and cry. 

Talking to them and trying to tease out what lessons it might have for understanding and communicating about crime was a conversation that I really wanted to have and one that I really enjoyed. I think you will too. 

Ferne Pearlstein is an award-winning producer, director, cinematographer, and editor, based in New York. She is a winner of the Sundance Cinematography Prize, and a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. In addition to her features SUMO EAST AND WEST and THE LAST LAUGH, which she produced, directed, shot, and edited, and both of which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and aired nationally on PBS”s Independent Lens series, she is currently producing JACK WHITTEN: A COSMIC SOUL, directed by Yoruba Richen.

Robert Edwards is writer, filmmaker, and the author of Resisting the Right: How to Survive the Gathering Storm, published by OR Books, about how to resist right wing authoritarianism in the US. He wrote and directed the feature films LAND OF THE BLIND, starring Ralph Fiennes and Donald Sutherland, and WHEN I LIVE MY LIFE OVER AGAIN, (aka ONE MORE TIME) starring Christopher Walken and Amber Heard. Most recently he co-produced and co-directed the feature documentary DEATH & TAXES with Justin Schein, and writes The King’s Necktie, a weekly blog on politics.

ASK E. JEAN, director Ivy Meeropol’s feature documentary about E. Jean Carroll, which premiered at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival, and on which Ferne a writer, editor, and supervising producer, will be in theaters this spring.