 
Coinciding with the release of Errol Morris’ First Person last month was this three disc set that collects his first three films (Gates Of Heaven, Vernon, Florida and The Thin Blue Line) on DVD for the first time. Morris’ style of documentary filmmaking – letting the camera linger on his subjects as they talk freely to it (and to him) is evident from the get go and after watching First Person and The Fog Of War it’s interesting to see how he’s refined his technique over the past 25 years. Gates Of Heaven is about pet cemeteries, the folks who run them and the people who bury their pets there. We meet Floyd McClure, a kindly soul who recounts how burying his dead collie turned into a full scale cemetery business a mere few feet away from the 280 freeway in Los Altos. At the same time, we hear from McClure’s business associates who eventually wrest control of the company away from him, then dig up and re-bury the animals in another part of the state. As is often the case in his films, Morris allows these two stories to be told in parallel, until they reach a state of convergence that ties them together and that can sometimes be very surprising. Scenes of individuals discussing their late pets and their reasons for putting their remains in a cemetery are juxtaposed with an interview with the owner of a rendering plant boasting about how circus animals are boiled down in no time flat, while the public believes that they’ve been buried somewhere else. It’s an oddly poignant flick that moves from respect to ridicule, eventually settling on some middle ground. Vernon, Florida clocks in a brisk 56 minutes and introduces us to a host of quirky characters that inhabit the sleepy Southern town. The turkey hunter and the old man who traps wild animals in his back yard were my favorites, but you might prefer the cop who sits in plain view on the main drag and waits for speeders, or any one of the other local yokels who piqued the director’s interest back in 1981. Seven years later, Morris stunned the film world with The Thin Blue Line, the story of a man unjustly accused of murdering a police officer. In addition to his signature interview footage, he included re-enactments of the crime that were shown repeatedly, but from different angles and points in time. With a haunting soundtrack by Philip Glass underscoring the details, Morris exposed the incompetence of the Dallas PD as they finger the wrong guy for the crime and let the real murderer go free. In the end, The Thin Blue Line helped to win the release of the innocent man, the real killer wound up in jail on other charges and was eventually executed. If you weren’t upset by the inadequacies of our judicial system before, this will get your blood boiling. With the exception of A Brief History Of Time, all of Morris’ work is now available on DVD. He is without a doubt, one of the best directors and filmmakers we have in this country and continues to raise the bar for the rest of the industry and for himself. Check the documentary section of your favorite DVD store for these titles and don’t forget to check out Mr. Death, Fast, Cheap & Out Of Control and of course, The Fog Of War. - David Bassin
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The Errol Morris Collection