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NOTES ON ERROL MORRIS

As he proudly avers, Nohand-held camera, no available light, no nothing of that sort. A cameraplanted on a tripod in front of people speaking. Breaking stylistic conventions

but still pursuing truth (Morris 2005a).

I put my face on the Teleprompteror, strictly speaking, my live video image. For the fi rst time, I couldbe talking to someone, and they could be talking to me and at thesame time looking directly into the lens of the camera. Now, therewas no looking off slightly to the side. No more faux fi rst person.This was the true fi rst person. (Morris 2004)

Una voz distintiva del cineasta que se plasma en.

A key aspect about his subjects and the fascination they arouse on us

As the people he is fi lming pursue or avoid truths about the worldand about themselves, at times intending to deceive their interlocutorand/or themselves, Morris must entertain the possibility that he is beingdeceived or deceiving himself. And we, too, must entertain that possibilityabout ourselves. However transparent, even laughable, we may fi nd thedeceptions or self-deceptions of these interviewees or storytellers, Morrisprovides usand himselfno secure position from which to assumeour own superiority to them. Morriss storytellers may be considered

unreliable narrators, Perez writes, not because theyre liars, not becausetheyre crazy, but because we cant be sure how far to trust them, becausethe ground on which to credit them or discredit them has been pulledout from under us. Morris may not endorse them but neither does hedisparage them. His irony is not at their expense. Rather, its directed atus in the audience, and it leaves us unsettled, in suspension.

explorar la naturaleza humana

interview -> storrytellingWhich is to say that these talking heads

given center stage and allowed to talk on cease being mere intervieweesand become full-fl edged storytellers

about the way of irony works through editingBy inserting footage from Frankenstein (the man says hes always

admired Dr. Frankenstein), or from Leni Riefenstahls Olympia (the mantalks about the beautiful bodies well all have when we rise from the frozen),Morris makes a kind of ironic comment. But mostly he withholdscomment, and his irony lies mostly in his withholding of comment. Itsthe irony of the eiron , the man who pre tends he knows nothing and hasnothing to say. Its the irony of the self-effacing author. (p.17)

trusting in the testimonyMorriss storytellers may be considered unreliable narrators, not

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because theyre liars, not because theyre crazy, but because we cant besure how far to trust them, because the ground on which to credit themor discredit them has been pulled out from under us. Morris may notendorse them but neither does he disparage them. His irony is not attheir expense. Rather, its directed at us in the audience, and it leaves usunsettled, in suspension.

Morriss irony cuts both ways:these narrators may be unreliable, but he credits them enough to letthem take over, to lend them in his fi lms the authority of storytellers,which normally they wouldnt enjoy.

alternative storytellers in his long length features

relative to the use of titlesIf their whimsical course does not entirely abandon the words,

the relationship at least becomes ambiguous, rippling with irony, play,and contradiction

Thus when nothingimmediate is at stake, for example, the guilt or innocence of a manon death row, Morris takes deeper interest in the stories people tell andthe web of beliefs they weave than in whether those beliefs are true orfalse. Morris seems to think that most of them are false.

They are about people, and especially the content ofand motivations for peoples beliefs. Morris makes strategic use of thefi lmed interview (see Lesson #8) in part because he is fascinated by themental landscapes of his subjects.

Truth matters. But in many cases,the truth is less interesting than the human dreamscapes that provide thebizarre and somewhat morbid topography of Errol Morriss work.

The manifestation of languagein voice, gesture, facial expression, and posture contribute greatly to thevalue of the fi lmed interview, and make it one of the essential tools of thedocumentary fi lmmaker. This is especially true for a fi lmmaker such asErrol Morris, who is less interested in the surface features of the visualworld than in the interiority of the human mental landscape.

KEYSpoken Words and Written Language

In much of his work, Morris seems fascinated with writtenlanguage and other visual symbols not as guarantors of truth but almost asfetish objects that have a material signifi cance of their own, or that mightlead to misleading fi xations on framing ideas or concepts.

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Morrisoften cuts to extreme close-ups of words or phrases isolated fromtheir contexts, for example, stopped for, oh, my gosh, guilty, nodescription.