Meet the Makers: Errol Morris

[Morris was born in Hewlett, New York on February 5, 1948. In the 10th grade Morris enrolled at the Putney School, a boarding school in Vermont. He began playing the cello, spending a summer in France studying music under the acclaimed Nadia Boulanger, who was the principal teacher of Philip Glass, who would eventually score The Thin Blue Line, A Brief History of Time, and The Fog of War. Having unsuccessfully approached both the University of Oxford and Harvard University, Morris was able to talk his way into Princeton University, where he began studying the history of science, a topic in which he had “absolutely no background.” He left Princeton in 1972, enrolling at Berkeley as a Ph.D. student in philosophy. Losing interest in his studies, Morris visited Plainfield, Wisconsin in 1975. While there, he conducted multiple interviews with Ed Gein, the infamous serial killer. Morris later returned to Plainfield, this time staying for almost a year, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews. Although he had plans to either write a book or make a film, Morris never completed his Ed Gein project.] – Wikipedia

Gates of Heaven (1980) was Errol Morris’ first film, a documentary about a pet cemetery in California. Morris focuses not just on the cemetery, but on the people who have their beloved pets laid to rest there. The film is an interesting and peculiar look at the notions of life and death. Gates of Heaven is often funny, sometimes a little weird, but is a story told openly and sincerely as if its subject matter was as normal and common as the air we breath. Roger Ebert reviewed the film when it first came out and loved it so much, he still holds it in such high regard it remains on his list of top ten films. Morris would follow this up with Vernon, Florida (1982) in which he delves into a small town of eccentric folks and their uniquely collective oddness. As the story goes, the town has the nickname of Nub City due to its citizen’s notorious practice of intentionally amputating their own limbs to collect insurance claims. Apparently, Morris received several death threats as a result from residents fearing he would expose their secret plot. So instead, Morris simply focused his film on the town’s unusual characters. Vernon, Florida turned out to be a rather entertaining example of how truth is often stranger than fiction.

The Thin Blue Line (1988) tells the story of Randall Adams, a man accused of murdering a police officer. Actual evidence is included in the documentary and the prosecution’s case becomes increasingly flimsy as another suspect is made to appear a much more likely culprit. The film argues successfully that he was wrongly convicted of a crime he didn’t commit by a corrupt judicial system in Texas. The movie incorporates interviews as well as reenactments, and as a result would be rejected by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences from competing for Best Documentary due to its scripted content. The Thin Blue Line would go on to win seven awards out of a total eleven nominations from various honors. This film would also mark the first of three collaborations between Errol Morris and the modern minimalist composer Philip Glass, whose work marvelously blends with Morris’ to create a sort of cinematic chemical fusion. The Thin Blue Line is both engaging and an entertaining film noir of sorts, while addressing an alarming issue of innocent people being convicted and sentenced to death row for crimes they have not committed.

A Brief History of Time (1991) brought Morris together with Stephen Hawking to make a motion picture adaptation of Hawking’s book of the same title. The movie is a documentary that brilliantly delves into the personal and intellectual sides of Hawking’s life as a man who has helped revolutionize the worlds of physics and cosmology, despite his battle with ALS. A Brief History of Time utilizes interviews with his friends and family to touch on his life outside of the sciences whereas time with Hawking himself is spent more with his thoughts and theories. Morris also implements several interesting visual aids during the portions of the film dealing with Hawking’s scientific concepts. A Brief History of Time won four awards including two from the Sundance Film Festival. While it doesn’t cover anywhere near as much as the book does, its still an interesting introduction to the mind of Stephen Hawking and serves as a good companion resource to the book itself. I also want to briefly mention Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997) which is one of my personal favorites, both whimsical and philosophical in its content and approach to its subjects.

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999) is a powerful and sometimes subtly disturbing meditation on the concept of death and capitol punishment as told through the mind and experience of Fred Leuchter, Jr. This documentary follows Leuchter through is career as an American designer of execution devices, portraying him as a curious genius seen as both brilliant and evil, depending on who you’re asking. Leuchter sometimes comes off as a sort of tortured savant, but later makes matters worse when he accepts an invitation from historical revisionist Ernst Zundel to visit Auschwitz to study and determine whether the Holocaust really occurred. Leuchter, as a result of his research and experience designing execution methods of many types, decides that its his professional opinion that the Holocaust could not have occurred according to how its described. Leuchter’s reports of his findings raise enormous protest and backlash against him and his career, despite his repeated statements that he was only reporting his findings from research he had done at the request of Zundel. The film is a dark and intelligent insight into the world of a life turned upside down by poor decisions.