The Errol Morris DVD Collection

One of cinema's most able documentarians is well-represented in this three-disc compilation of early efforts. Fascinated by America's unusual mixture of the bizarre and the banal, Oscar-winning director Errol Morris trained his camera on people and places seldom covered by mainstream media outlets at the outset of his filmmaking career. In Gates of Heaven (1978), he visits a pet cemetery in Southern California and films bereaved owners who go to extraordinary (and occasionally hilarious) lengths to memorialize their beloved animals. The even-better Vernon, Florida (1982) contains more quirky characters than you can shake a stick at--the zookeeper who “kick starts” his turtles, the worm farmer upset that his prized, imported night crawlers have been lost to nearby swamps, an elderly couple who believe that sand grows in a jar, and an obsessive but singularly ineffectual turkey hunter. These people pour out their hearts to Morris, whose interviewing technique, camerawork, and editing makes them look rather foolish…but not necessarily in an unsympathetic way. Morris' ongoing interest in the country's less affluent, marginalized citizens veers into social commentary with The Thin Blue Line (1988), an impassioned look at a luckless hitchhiker sentenced to life in prison after being convicted--wrongly, as it turned out--of murdering a Texas police officer. Less a documentary than a highly-charged example of advocacy journalism, this award-winning film persuaded officials to reopen the case and eventually resulted in the prisoner's exoneration. Morris is a solid craftsman whose films are models of documentary storytelling. Boasting solid transfers, DVD extras include the episode “Mr. Personality” from Morris' First Person TV series. Highly recommended. (E. Hulse)