Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

09 January 2008

Gates of Heaven, dir. Errol Morris (1980)

STEVE says:
Gates of Heaven had promise. But either through false advertising or bad salesmanship, it never lived up to that promise.

Here's what it says on the DVD packet:
"When financial hardship forces California's Foothill Pet Cemetery to close it's pearly gates, its dearly departed loved ones are relocated to the nearby Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park. During this tense transition, filmmaker [Errol] Morris meets a collection of eccentric cemetery operators and anguished animal lovers and elicits a meditation on love and loneliness..."
But that's not quite the movie we saw. Indeed, it starts off rather well, with Floyd "Mac" McClure telling the story of how Foothill Pet Cemetery came to be, and how through bad business dealings, it came to fold. Because of the investors' greed, the partnership was dissolved and all the pets interred at Foothill had to be moved.

Cut to Bubbling Well. It's not necessarily clear that ALL of the pets from Foothill were transferred to Bubbling Well, but that doesn't appear to have been the point. Had we followed the transport of the pets, seen them to their final final destination, heard more from the grieving owners, it may have held my attention. Instead, we meet the Harberts', the family who run Bubbling Well, and it seemed to become another documentary altogether.

We're introduced to Cal Harberts and his wife, and they seem like genuine, caring people, much like Mac. But when we meet the sons, Phil and Dan, we're treated to long-winded ramblings from Phil about his recent life in the insurance industry, his motivational speeches, his philosophies on life and yadda yadda yadda. Dan appears to speak more about the pet cemetery business, but also tends to go off about his music quite a bit. At one stage we're treated to a solo performance which, while beautifully shot, didn't do much to further the story of the pets from Foothill.

In my opinion, it was over-long and poorly edited; Roger Ebert thinks it's the greatest documentary ever made, so who am I to argue?

1.5/5

NIKKI says:
Was it me? Was it us? Do we just not get this kind of slow-paced, repetitive storytelling? I spent a great deal of time while watching this movie wondering exactly what Morris was trying to do. I considered the style, the slack pace, the telling and retelling of the same kinds of stories by the interviewees and I managed to come up with something akin to studied portraiture. You never tire looking at Dorothea Lange's work, for instance, of families during the Depression. Perhaps, I thought, Errol Morris wanted us to view the Harberts, say, in a similar fashion. The more we look at them, in the same spaces, saying basically the same things, the more fascinating they become? Same with the old folks in Vernon, Fla -- we trace the lines on the men's faces by the end of that film, and they are compelling people. But a snapshot is all Morris gives us -- the same people in the same spots rehashing the same stories.

The same happens here, or at least winds up happening after 25 minutes of a genuinely interesting story of the Foothills Pet Cemetery. I found myself far more interested in what happened to Mac, founder of Foothills, when the place went under, than Phillip Harberts style of parenting.

I understand Morris has a style, an approach perhaps unconventional, but I was nonetheless left out here. Maybe the film is not so much like a Lange photo at all. I look at "Migrant Mother" and the stories form in my head. The background is there -- the era, the kids -- but the full picture reveals itself only through my imagination, and Lange's darkness and light. If the woman in that photo sat and rabbited on about about the same watering hole or dirt pile for 85 minutes, she'd lose her fascination, wouldn't she?

2/5

Vernon, Florida, dir. Errol Morris (1982)

STEVE says:
Yeah, this one I just didn't get. Vernon, Florida is 55 minutes of people - mostly insane people - chatting away with no real point. You've got the turkey hunter, who was as interesting to watch as he was to listen to, always with one ear pointed to the field, should a turkey decide to step up. "You hear that?" he kept saying; the preacher who sermonizes about the etymology of the word "therefore"; and there was the old guy who collected animals - his tale of the mule carcass he pulled off the bottom of the fishing pond with 114 perch inside it will stick with me forever.

But then there was the just plain mental guy who took pictures of the moon and stars with a cheap camera and a pair of opera glasses; the guy who rambled on and on about "the four balls" in the brain and how, when all those balls are being used, "you're not a one-track mind, you're a four-track mind"; and the couple who thought their jar full of sand from White Sands, New Mexico was actually "growing" (as they put it), and would be full by next year.

Watching these people talk - not even tell their stories, but just talk, on and on - I couldn't help wondering what the point of this exercise was. But I was thanking Christ it was only 55 minutes long.

1.5/5

NIKKI says:
They just weren't that interesting.

I love, love, love slice-of-life storytelling. The idea that we can see a moment in a person's life and piece together histories and futures.That a single moment, a sentence, a few words can be used to sum up a person, a culture, a nature. I thought this movie would do that, but I didn't find it revealing really at all. Strange men live in Vernon, have a listen. As far as why they are that way, what their lives represent, what they mean, none of that matters, or seems to matter. So, is it just the snapshot and the precise moment that is supposed to compel me? I'm so torn with this. Normally, I'd be all for it, but it didn't work for me. I was enthralled in the first 15 minutes, but then my interest died.

And here's how I caught this turkey. And here's how I caught that turkey. And isn't this old guy nuts?

Ugh -- did I miss the point? I don't think so.

1.5/5

The Thin Blue Line, dir. Errol Morris (1988)

NIKKI says:
As expected, The Thin Blue Line scared and upset me. There are enough film now to make "innocent people sent to prison" a genre, a section at the video store. This, Murder on a Sunday Morning, Paradise Lost, The Trials of Darryl Hunt, and others could sit together on a shelf, shaming the United States' court system.

The story, simplified, goes like this: a police officer is shot and killed during a routine stop. After some investigation, 16-year-old David Harris is picked up for the shooting (after bragging about it to friends). He then points the finger at Randall Adams, a drifter he hung out with that same evening. Adams is forced to sign a statement outlining the events of the night in question, which the cops then start to label a confession. Adams is tried and convicted, and sentenced to death.

Of course, it's not that clear cut, and throughout the film we learn the prosecution went to some shady lengths to ensure a conviction. It's clear early on in the film that doubt hangs all over the case and the eventual trial. The end of the film undoes the lot with a taped recantation from Harris played before the closing credits. It's no surprise then, that Adams was released from jail -- something that happened as a direct result of the movie.

Morris's style here is interesting to watch. I thought some of the theatrics, like the swinging watch to indicate hypnotism, were a bit over the top. Otherwise, Morris tells the story expertly, giving us the facts, then demonstrating how flimsy those facts actually are. It's hard to watch these cops and detectives justifying their lies and poor police work. Watching them with the benefit of hindsight is just sickening. Why is this allowed to happen? Since when was career advancement or the desire for swift resolutions reason to lie, to ruin lives, to eviscerate one's own credibility? Unless these people, like Judge David Metcalfe in this case, are just that stupid.

These films are so important. And we're so lucky to have people like Morris to fearlessly tear things up in this way. It's clear with the creation of similar films just how this film paved the way.

4.5/5