EROLL MORRIS Errol Morris, producer and director, began making his first non-feature in 1978, after reading a headline in the «San Francisco Chronicle»: «450 dead pets to go to Napa». The resulting picture, Gates of Heaven, was called by Roger Ebert «one of the ten best films of all time». Morris' next film, Vernon, Florida, about the eccentric residents of a southern swamp town, was called by David Ansen in «Newsweek», «the work of a true original». In 1988, Morris completed his most controversial film, The Thin Blue Line, which succeeded in overturning the convicton of Randall Adams for the murder of a Dallas policeman, a crime for which Adams was to be executed. Morris went on to make A Brief History of Time, about the life and work of Stephen Hawking, the physicist who is often compared to Einstein and who has spent his life in a wheelchair. In his most recent documentary, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, Morris weaves together ruminations on the meaning of life by a lion tamer, a topiary gerdener, a biologist who observes mole rats, and a robotic scientist. It joins a body of work that should classify Morris as a national treasure. FILMOGRAPHY 1978 Gates of Heaven (documentary) 1981 Vernon, Florida (documentary) 1988 The Thin Blue Line (documentary) 1991 The Dark Wind 1992 A Brief History of Time 1997 Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (documentary) Gates of Heaven GATES OF HEAVEN This film is a documentary about two pet cemeteries in Northern California. But it is also infinitely more than that. It is a meditation on love, death, greed and loneliness, and it illustrates those qualities very sharply. The film's visual style is spare and straight ahead. It considers the owners of the pet cemeteries, their enemies and their customers (many of them deeply moved by the recent deaths of their pets). There are times when the film seems to be satirizing its subjects, but other times when it seems to share a deep sympathy with them. Gates of Heaven is an incredibly funny scrutiny of surreal daily life, a story about language and images, success and failure in America. Direction: Errol Morris. / Cinematography: Ned Burgess. / Editing: Errol Morris. / Sound: Jay Miracle. / Producer: Errol Morris. / Production: Errol Morris Films Inc. / World Sales: Errol Morris Films Inc., 1697 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, USA, tel.: 212 582 4045. 35mm / Colour 85' The Thin Blue Line THE THIN BLUE LINE This is «the first murder mystery that actually solves a murder», as Morris himself described his documentary. Dallas Policeman Robert Wood's routine inspection of a night driver became his last, as the man behind the wheel shot him dead. 16-year old David Harris was arrested for the killing, but swore that a hitch-hiker, Randall Adams had committed the crime. Harris was released - Adams sentenced to death. Was Randall Adams a murderer - or an innocent scapegoat? In the tradition of an Executioner's Song and in Cold Blood, The thin Blue Line is a chilling investigation and reconstruction of a brutal, cold-blooded murder. This real-life drama impartially shifts fact and fiction, bluntly confronting the evidence. The results will take you to the boundaries of justice and beyond. Direction: Errol Morris. / Cinematography: Stefan Czapsky, Robert Chappel. / Editing: Paul Barnes. / Music: Philip Glass. / Producer: Mark Lipson. / Production: American Playhouse, Channel 4, The Program Development Company. / World Sales: Fourth Floor Productions, 678 Massachussetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, tel.: 617 876 4499, fax: 617 876 4540. 35mm / Colour 101' Fast, Cheap and Out of Control FAST, CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL This is a documentary that weaves together ruminations on the meaning of life by a fading lion tamer; a topiary gardener; a biologist who observes a colony of mole rats; and a robotics scientist. Morris explains: «If all these stories are about bids for control of our world, it is not simply the control that comes from being able to tell people "do this" or "do that". It is a control that comes from being able to reconstruct the world for your own purposes, hospitable, inhabitable. In the case of the topiary gardener, it takes him fifteen years to make the bear. Through years of planning and effort, you nurture it until it grows and blossoms into this thing, whether a giraffe [...] or an armchair. But he also tells you it is ephemeral. There are hurricanes, insects, blights, birds, wrong equipment. And there is his own mortality. […] What takes him fifteen, twenty years to build may be destroyed in a day. Yet he persists in doing it anyway». Direction: Errol Morris. / Cinematography: Robert Richardson. / Editing: Shondra Merrill, Karen Schmeer. / Music: Caleb Sampson. / Producer: Errol Morris. / Production: Errol Morris Films, Inc. / World Sales: Fourth Floor Productions Inc., 678 Massachussetts Ave., Cambridge MA 02139, USA, tel.: 617 876 4499, fax: 617 8876 4540. 35mm / Colour 82'