Why can’t they just leave Errol Morris alone? I know I’m coming a little late to the conversation, but the guy makes the most sensitive, humanizing films that try to bridge our understanding of human frailty, oddity, evil and injustice. One of his films even got a guy off of death row. And he has masterful control of the camera: his cinematography (one of his current co-directors of photography is Robert Richardson, who also shoots for the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone) is exquisite. But, still, they treat him like an arrogant, misguided 5th grader playing in the high school gym.
Morris reveals the truth in ways no other filmmaker can. But he is still shunned by so many. When I stood outside the theater, a man asked me, “What did you think?” I knew it was a loaded question. I told him I was moved, and asked him what he thought. “Well, let’s just say I’m more from the Maysles school of documentary filmmaking.”
OK, whatever. He’s got a right to his opinion. But what irks me is how estimable critics such as J. Hoberman of the Village Voice, Richard Schickel of Time and Variety‘s Todd McCarthy knock Morris for imbuing the subject matter with too much of his “fancy style.” And then there are these recent reports from The New York Times that Morris paid his interview subjects, suggesting this makes them compromised sources.
If only people could sit and watch an Errol Morris film without staid preconceptions about what a documentary should be. Morris, like so many documentary filmmakers who are now following his footsteps, isn’t so much making a nonfiction film as he is making a film. His work transcends fiction and nonfiction by weaving the two together. And if that’s too confusing for the viewer, then he or she is missing out on something vital in our culture. In the age of double-speak where a president can create tax policies and war strategies based on fictions, or a television show such as The Hills can seduce a generation with its seamless merging of fiction and nonfiction into a tasteless but addictive froth, it’s best to develop a medium that can use a similar language but to do so intelligently and with good conscience. Call it homeopathic filmmaking. Morris is treating like with like, and he should be applauded rather than reviled for it.