A Brief History of Errol Morris (2000)

Director:

Kevin Macdonald

Genre:

Documentary

Plot Keywords:

Director | Film Making | Film Maker | Character Name In Title

Cast

Philip Glass
Werner Herzog
Tom Luddy
Errol Morris

Runtime:

48 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Company:

Independent Film Channel (IFC)

Movie Connections:

Features Gates of Heaven (1978)

An engaging documentary that is well put together to be interesting and amusing

I have not seen that many of Errol Morris' films and, like many others, I came to the back of this film off the back of the success of The Fog of War. So I must confess that the film offered me limited interest at first given that it was a film on a subject I had little knowledge. However the film does do a good job of breaking down Errol's work and discussing each in a brief and concise way but still managing to be interesting.

The main reason for this is that the contributions are controlled and valuable. Macdonald knows how to make documentaries and he does a good job even though I can only imagine that he must have felt a certain amount of pressure in working with Morris and Herzog. Unlike some documentaries that drag everyone and their dog in to have their say on a subjects but here it is reasonably limited to a handful of people with the majority of time actually being spent with Morris himself. The approach is deliberately in the style of Morris' films where his subject talks to camera without the interviewer really having a presence. As it works in his films so it works here and it does feel like we are just sitting listening to the man himself. Of course it does help to have an interest in the man or his films but even with only a passing knowledge it is good enough to engage and hold the interest.

Overall then an interesting "brief history" of the films of Errol Morris up to the point of Mr Death. It is done in an engaging way and makes good use of the contributors involved so that even the casual viewer will find it interesting. I for one will be checking out some of the films that they went though here.