Los Angeles is the land of the weird and the magical: from the golden beaches boasting endless summer glamour, to the fancy, high-profile drug dens masquerading as decadent architecture, from appointment-only vintage workwear stores to Venice’s gritty boardwalk. Not only that, but Los Angeles County is the most populous county in the US with approximately 10 million residents. That’s why every documentary about LA has a tale of the bizarre and the morbid, sometimes intertwined together, and in Coroner to the Stars we find ourselves tangled up in one such story.
Director Ben Hethcoat was personally drawn to the world of death and autopsies at a very young age, born to a forensic pathologist father. That’s why the subject of our documentary, Dr. Thomas Noguchi — probably the most famous coroner in the world — fascinated him. Dr. Noguchi’s life is a representation of the definitive LA story: highs and lows, fame and loathing, celebration then banishment. His time as the Los Angeles Chief Medical Examiner Coroner was during some of the county’s most unrestful, but also vibrant times. Hethcoat interviews the doctor, but also tries to interview important figures from the medical examiner’s office which explain his scientific genius as he is the pioneer of psychological autopsy, a fascinating concept described in detail while discussing the infamous autopsy of Marilyn Monroe. The famous bodies kept piling up: Senator Robert Kennedy, Sharon Tate, William Holden, and Natalie Wood, to name a few, while the doctor’s fame rose with the fame of his clients.
The documentary goes on to narrate some of the most shocking, famous, and intense LA cases that required an autopsy, and how Dr. Noguchi was up to the task, more than delivering, not just with his mastery of his craft but his wisdom. It’s important to note how the entire body of White men in power was working against Dr. Noguchi. The director carefully shows how systemic racism works and eliminates people of color from mobility in hierarchies and positions where their decision-making would make a difference in American society. Watching how events unfold for Dr. Noguchi is bittersweet. It’s the quintessential immigrant story with all the rise to the top and the heartbreak that ensues. Listening to his soothing voice as it carries the wisdom of ages doesn’t simply unlock his story, and the struggles he faced as a Japanese immigrant trying to carve his legacy in the stone, but also a witness to the times. And man, those were turbulent times that he lived through: the Helter Skelter scare, the Marilyn Monroe suicide, the political assasinations of celebrity politicians.
One of the scenes that caught me off guard was in LA county’s medical examiner’s office, with hundreds of bodies piled up, wrapped in plastic and given number identifiers. Hethcoat brilliantly brings us closer to death, a topic most people tend to avoid and yet in the case of celebrities and famous murders, people are lustful and morbidly curious about. As he interviews Dr. Noguchi, we are introduced to a mysterious world, of death, bodies, and the secrets behind them.
But that’s America, isn’t it? One day someone is at the top of the world, the next day, he is hidden in a bleak basement. Thanks to artists like Hethcoat, Dr. Noguchi’s legacy is restored and younger generations can now know about his tumultuous -but also enthralling and inspirational- journey.
At the heart of it, Coroner to the Stars is a celebrity story as much as it is an immigrant story. For every celebrity-adjacent person becomes a mini-celebrity themselves. And our beloved doctor deserves his status, his hard work, and rich life to be immortalized for generations to come.