THE EYE OF ERROL MORRIS

By Raymond Benson

Very few documentary filmmakers are able to break into the American mainstream (and abroad) and become both a critical and commercial success. The majority of documentaries made do not get seen in your average metroplex, but a lucky bucketful—Michael Moore’s films, for example—get wide releases.

This happened to Errol Morris in 1988 with the release of his excellent docu-drama, The Thin Blue Line. Critically acclaimed (but excluded from Oscar consideration because it contains recreated sequences), Morris’ tale of Randall Dale Adams, a convict sitting in a Texas penitentiary who may have been convicted, imprisoned, and sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit, struck a chord with the audience. It also became a cult hit and served as Morris’ gateway to becoming one of the best-known and respected documentarians of our day. After all, the film indirectly resulted in Adams’ exoneration and release. (Morris eventually did win the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2003 with The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.)

This month The Criterion Collection delivers a one-two punch from Errol Morris—The Thin Blue Line on one disc, and, packaged separately, a double-feature of Morris’ first two acclaimed documentaries—Gates of Heaven and Vernon, Florida. The two releases provide the viewer with a look at the evolution of a filmmaker over a ten-year, three-film period.

At the time, The Thin Blue Line explored new ground in documentary approach, presenting a crime story in a style akin to television’s America’s Most Wanted, which, coincidentally, debuted the same year. It was “reality cinema,” containing POV interviews with suspects, lawmen, attorneys, and witnesses, and footage of the “crime” staged and recreated by actors—all standard stuff of reality crime shows on TV today. It was new then.

It’s interesting to note that Morris didn’t set out to make a documentary about Randall Dale Adams. His original intent was to cover the psychiatrist known as “Dr. Death,” a man in Texas who testified at every capital sentencing as to the defendant’s likelihood of committing more crimes if he was not put to death. But in the course of researching his subject in Dallas, Morris came across Adams’ case and turned his attention to that.

The picture is as riveting and suspenseful as any fiction crime drama. The spoken evidence Morris presents is compelling, but it’s the visual testimony—the Rashomon-style different points of view of the crime reenactments—that supplies the picture with its engrossing neo-noir sensibility. Of particular note is Philip Glass’ haunting score, which perfectly captures the melancholy and paranoia of the world of crime and punishment.

Criterion’s new high-definition digital restoration, supervised by Morris and producer Mark Lipson, has a 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, and both are fabulous. Extras include a new interview with Morris, an interview with filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer on the picture, and a Today Show excerpt from 1989 covering Adams’ release from prison. The booklet contains an essay by film scholar Charles Musser.

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Gates of Heaven put Morris on the map with this idiosyncratic look at the development of a pet cemetery in California. Featuring interviews with the personages involved, as well as a now-iconic clip of an old lady getting her dog to sing with her, Gates reveals the filmmaker’s quirkiness and his ability to capture the truly weird on film. Vernon, Florida was actually Morris’ first endeavor, but he’d left it unfinished. He went on to make Gates and then returned to complete the short. It’s about some truly eccentric individuals who live in a small whistle-stop town in the boondocks. Originally, Morris had planned to cover an insurance scam that was prevalent in the town—people were cutting off limbs and submitting accident claims, earning the community the name “Nub City.” Morris gave up that idea when he was beat up by some of the people he was interviewing!

Criterion’s disc features new 2K digital restorations of both films, supervised by Morris. Extras include two new interviews with the director about each picture, footage of director Werner Herzog talking about Gates at the 1980 Telluride Film Festival, and the gem of the entire collection—the short film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, a 1980 short, directed by Les Blank, that documents Herzog cooking and devouring his shoe in public—he had bet Morris that if the young documentarian would simply get out there and make his first feature (Gates), then Herzog would “eat his shoe.” While it’s great to have the two documentaries on Blu-ray, I’m not so sure the two films deserved a separate release of their own (they could have easily been extras on the Thin Blue Line disc).

But talk about the eye of a filmmaker! Errol Morris works with one eye at full strength and his other at a diminished capacity as a result of a childhood medical condition, but that doesn’t keep the director from possessing a wonderful sense of mise-en-scéne. He manages to depict the odd, the ironic, and the profound all in one take. Check out both releases.

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