More on Morris

My pal Creelea asked me to expand the little promo blurb I did on the upcoming Errol Morris boxed set for an expat magazine she's working for in Moscow. Not being one to waste content, here's it is, all growed up and spellchecked and everything.

Erroll Morris Box Set

One of the grave injustices of the digital era is being redressed by the impending release of documentarian Erroll Morris's early works on DVD, available at a bargain price from MGM. The films are available individually, but the box set of three beckons with sinuously gesturing black velvet gloves.

Gates of Heaven, his first film, is a surprisingly touching investigation of a pet cemetery and its fellow travelers, human and animal. The balance for Morris's later films is created here, with the serious subtext (death) set off by an unconventional array of characters.
The near-religious fervor that fuels the creation of the highway-side pet cemetery proves no match for the financial realities of tumorous Suburbia, and the eventual fate of the mortal remains makes for an engrossing second act, introducing an entirely new and fascinating family of characters.
Side note: crazed genius Werner Hertzog goaded him into making this movie, making a losing bet that he would eat his shoe if it was ever released.
The winning of the bet generated another short documentary feature by Les Blank, a friend of both men, with the appropriate title 'Werner Hertzog Eats his Shoe'

Vernon, Florida, the most winning and lighthearted of all Morris's works, captures a moment before reality television and media saturation turned even the most obscure backwater Main Street into a cattle call audition. The population of this Southern hamlet are deeply and genuinely eccentric, they share their obsessions and manias with a confessional openness far removed from the pornographic exhibitionism of Survivor.
The meaning here is in the people, not an external storyline, and it's so fantastically successful because the subjects exert the unconscious fascination of children, acting out their inner life with no regard for what or who might be watching. The best of the many indelible characters is the turkey hunter, the beating philosophical heart of the movie, pursuing zen perfection into the swamps with his mute sidekick.

The third (and best known to the public at large) is The Thin Blue Line, which singlehandedly freed an innocent man from death row and rather less laudably set loose the hounds of 'dramatic reenactment' on the public consciousness. But as the French New Wave can hardly be blamed for the legion of advertisers whoring their techniques to sell toilet paper and suppositories, neither can Erroll be blamed for the Necro-criminalism of 'America's Most Wanted'.
In any case the film is more sinned against than sinning as the Academy disqualified it from Oscar contention for recreating events, even though they were so stylized only someone deaf and blind to cinematic conventions could fail to notice their artificiality. The clarity of the presentation and the muted outrage of each frame makes it an unforgettable viewing experience.

The three films taken together plot the arc of the director's future career (excluding Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, obvious loser of Sesame Street's 'which of these things is not like the other' game).
The trademark combination of serious intent with observational humor that informs his best work can be seen blossoming here like a time lapse flower in a Disney nature film. None of these films are objectively his best work- that distinction belongs to the profoundly assured and balanced Mister Death, a movie that deftly combines the structure of Gates of Heaven with the humor and humanity of Vernon, Florida and steeps the result in the seriousness of Thin Blue Line.
But all are brilliant on their own terms, and Vernon, Florida, with its subterranean meanings and obvious pleasures is the most purely enjoyable of all Morris's works, and one of the most enjoyable documentaries of all time.
So get yourself over to Amazon and pre-order, Philistine!

special futuristic internet bonus features:
The Box Set
The Filmmaker's Web Site

and to make sure nobody misses it, here's a link to a lecture he gave that talks about the three films in the context of Fog of War, and includes some clips from Vernon, Florida and The Thin Blue Line.
Fabulous stuff.