O.J.: Made In America, ESPN’s new five-part documentary (the first segment premieres tomorrow on ABC), revisits O.J. Simpson’s meteoric rise to mainstream American stardom and his equally spectacular fall from grace. Directed by Ezra Edelman, the film does a fantastic job of establishing the complex racial, sociological, and historical context for the O.J. trial, and makes a case for why its hugely polarizing verdict was both a triumph for black civil rights and a tragedy in its failure to bring a criminal to justice.

Edelman marshaled an incredible trove of footage to paint a picture of a country and a man divided. His film runs almost eight hours long, and it’s well worth the time investment. Below, a few of O.J.: Made in America’s most striking and surreal moments.

1. In his first seasons playing pro football for the Buffalo Bills, O.J., already a huge college star, had a rough time at the hands of coach John Rauch who tried to turn the running back into a receiver, in spite of the fact that O.J. couldn’t catch the ball. Rauch resigned in 1971, and the Bills hired Coach Lou Saban, who brought back a running offense, and in so doing, paved the way for O.J.’s superstardom. “I tell you,” Simpson’s Bills teammate Booker Edgerson tells the camera. “If Lou Saban hadn’t a come in, we wouldn’t be doing this story right now.” It’s an eerie sentiment: On the one hand, if O.J. hadn’t gotten famous, he most certainly would not, decades later, be the subject of a documentary. On the other hand, as the rest of the film demonstrates: His pathological need for public adoration, and the immunity that fame offered, almost certainly contributed to his belief that he could behave with impunity outside of the law.

2. When Hertz Rental Car tapped O.J. as the star of their 1975 ad campaign, their decision to make a black man the face of the company was seemingly groundbreaking. But then–Hertz CEO Frank Olson didn’t quite think of it that way. “For us,” Olson remembers, “O.J. was colorless. O.J. portrayed success.” Fred Levinson, director of those Hertz spots, took it even further: “He was a good-looking man. He has almost white features.” And the Hertz ads that show O.J. hurtling through the airport with characteristic speed and grace worked for white America only because everyone else in the shot was white. “O.J. was the first to demonstrate that white folks would buy stuff based on a black endorsement, as long as it was not pressed as a black endorsement,” explains the sociologist Dr. Henry Edwards. “The way they did that was to remove black people from any scene that O.J. was in.”

OJ: Made in America Photo: Courtesy of ESPN Films