Errol Morris’s documentary ‘The Thin Blue Line’ has long been on my watchlist. More partial to narrative cinema, I’ve wanted to get into watching acclaimed documentary films for quite some time. I’ll often watch a documentary on a contemporary public figure or something historical, but never too much more. Cinematographer Roger Deakins got his start in documentaries, and has a list that includes a number of documentaries he recommends watching. Exposed to cinéma vérité and the work of Jean Rouch earlier this year, I’ve now begun to seriously explore the form.
And so to Morris. ‘The Thin Blue Line’ is the American documentary, but, as an introduction to his work, I wanted to start with his first film, 1978’s ‘Gates of Heaven.’
My experience with more casual documentaries (which I love) did not prepare well me for the narrative presentation of this film, but I wholly enjoyed this viewing journey.
Errol Morris. Image via Transom.
The first question is how to define this film— Is it satire? An exploration of everywhere America? A mediation on the meaning of life and death? An examination of the entrepreneurial sprit in its weirdest, oddest, and most…American?
‘Gates of Heaven’ begins with the story of Floyd McClure, who aspires to build a cemetery for dead pets, and goes into business to do so, which eventually goes under. The setting is California, south of San Francisco in the 1970s.
Morris does not narrate or use voiceover—he simply lets the interviewees recount the story. McClure’s pure, albeit somewhat quirky love for animals is juxtaposed with the practical business mind of a man who directs a rendering plant (read: processing deceased animals for raw materials), the latter who is all the more ruthless because of his laid back, pragmatic, even genial sensibility.
After the business fails, and 450 dead pets have to be dug up, the pets—and the film—head up to Napa, where Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park (still operating today) takes over.
Cal Harberts and his two adult operate Bubbling Well. Cal Harberts built the cemetary as well-functioning enterprise, using his business acumen to make it sustainable and respectful for those who bury their pets there.
Harberts’s demeanor almost feels like a personified idea of Reagan country. He is religious, conservative, and systematized. He even converts the cemetery to a nondenominational church.
His two sons are noteworthy characters as well. Danny, younger, had his heart broken in college and moved home to work with his Dad. He lives alone on the grounds and has guitar dreams. Late in the day, when the grounds are quiet, Danny blasts his guitar riffs across the fields.
Philip Harbets. Image via interests.
Philip, in his mid 30s, seems like he hit a bit of a snag. He moved back home with his young family after a stint as an insurance salesman. He speaks in mid-twentieth century “success” language—power of mind, intention, and principles to find a better life. In his office on the grounds, Philip has trophies and plaques, like in his insurance days, and a framed picture of self-help author W. Clement Stone. He spends his memorizing and driving routes for pet pickup in the greater San Francisco.
Sprinkled throughout the film, are interviews with the pet owners. While watching, you think of their personalization of their pets as peculiar, but then you realize that you too are the same, when it comes to your own pets. This duality makes the film both mystifying and contemplative.
Roger Ebert highlights one of these color characters: “The centerpiece of the film is an extended monologue spoken by a woman named Florence Rasmussen, who sits in the doorway of her home, overlooking the first pet cemetery. William Faulkner or Mark Twain would have wept with joy to have created such words as fall from her mouth, as she tells the camera the story of her life: She paints the details in quick, vivid sketches, and then contradicts every single thing she says.”
Rejecting the more common handheld documentary style, Morris’s still camera colors the film in the greens and yellows of California. The interviews, rather than blurred backgrounds in forgettable spaces, are perfectly composed frames, filled with important details of these people’s world. Landscape shots add a meditative quality to the work. And you never see a single deceased pet.
Image via Pinterest.
The palette and grain of 16mm film timestamps the work. For me, the documentary is a snapshot of America in that period between the initial post-war years and the end of the Cold War. It’s a historical document. Its characters make it almost Lynchian, like a real-life episode of ‘Twin Peaks.’ The sometimes-seen artifacts in the film gate render true, and the film feels both intentional and spontaneous. ‘Gates of Heaven’ stands with Terrence Malick’s ‘Badlands’ as capturing something poignant about the American ethos.
These decisions, in both narrative structure and technical form, are deliberate by Morris. As he says in the Criterion Collection interview below, ”I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that there is a correct way to tell a story or make a film…it’s a pursuit it’s a quest…in a hope you can learn something about the world. But to think truth is connected with style?…It doesn’t work that way, who could have ever thought that it did?”
Errol Morris is pursuing and presenting something unique in ‘Gates of Heaven,’ with layers of truth found throughout. It’s up to the viewer to decide where to look.
- JG