| Fast, Cheap & Out of Control | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Errol Morris |
| Produced by | Errol Morris |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
| Edited by | Shondra Merrill Karen Schmeer |
| Music by | Caleb Sampson |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Classics |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 82 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $878,960 (USA) |
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control is a 1997 documentary film by filmmaker Errol Morris. [1]
The film profiles four subjects with extraordinary careers: Dave Hoover, a wild-animal tamer; George Mendonça, a topiary gardener at Green Animals Topiary Garden in Portsmouth, Rhode Island; Ray Mendez, an expert on naked mole-rats who has designed an exhibit on the animals for the Philadelphia Zoo; and Rodney Brooks, an MIT scientist who works in robotics. In the interviews with the men, which act as the guiding narration for the film, they discuss their personal lives, what led them to their professions, what challenges they face in their work, and their thoughts about what they see in the future for their careers, their fields, and the world.
In Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, Morris uses a camera technique he invented which allows the interview subject to maintain eye contact with the interviewer while also looking directly into the camera, seemingly making eye contact with the audience. The invention is called the Interrotron, and Morris uses it in a number of his other films. According to Morris, this invention alters interviews in the sense that "no longer is it the interviewer, the camera, and the subject; with the Interrotron, the conversation is between the camera/interviewer and the subject." [2]
Morris uses the four main subjects to narrate the film, while displaying more artistic freedom through visual mechanisms. The cinematographer, Robert Richardson, uses many of the same camera techniques he used in Oliver Stone's films JFK and Natural Born Killers . In addition to 35 mm cameras, he also uses Super 8 mm film. Some footage was even transferred to video and then filmed again being played "off a low-resolution television set." [3]
The film also uses footage from other sources, such as movie clips, documentary footage, and cartoons. [4] Hoover's idol Clyde Beatty appears via portions of a film ( The Big Cage , 1933) and serial ( Darkest Africa , 1936) in which he starred, and there are clips of malicious robots from the serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952).
After using the first moments in the film to establish the characters one by one with film clips that correspond to each subject, Morris then begins to mix footage relating to one subject with the narration of another in order to establish themes shared by the different subjects.
Morris said that "The multiple [film and video] formats make you aware of imagery as imagery, but I can't imagine this film without the narration by the characters. The ideas come from the relation between what is being said and what is being seen. If there isn't a connection, it doesn't work -- and I can testify to this from empirical knowledge gathered in an editing room.'' Morris credited his editor, Karen Schmeer, with "saving" the film. The day after she died, he wrote on Twitter: "An extraordinary editor makes possible something that would not have been possible without them. Karen Schmeer was an extraordinary editor." [5]
Morris' initial intention for the film was to create a profile-based film with no clear relation between its subjects. This was in contrast to his previous films, in which the interview subjects were related by events, like in Gates of Heaven and The Thin Blue Line , [6] or place of residency, like in Vernon, Florida . [7]
The title of the film is a play on the old engineer's adage that, out of "fast", "cheap", and "reliable", you can only produce an end consumer product that is two of those three (the classic example is a car). Brooks, the robot scientist in the film, published a paper in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society in 1989 titled "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control: A Robot Invasion of the Solar System". [8] In it, he speculated that it might be more effective to send one hundred one-kilogram robots into space instead of a single hundred-kilogram robot, replacing the need for reliability with chance and sheer numbers, as systems in nature have learned to do. The advantage would be that, if a single robot malfunctioned or got destroyed, there would still be plenty of other working robots to do the exploring.
In a profile of Morris, Roger Ebert wrote that if he had to describe the film, he'd "say it's about people who are trying to control things--to take upon themselves the mantle of God." Morris agrees that "There is a Frankenstein element. They're all involved in some very odd inquiry about life...There's something mysterious in each of the stories, something melancholy as well as funny. And there's an edge of mortality. For the end of the movie I showed the gardener clipping the top of his camel, clipping in a heavenly light, and then walking away in the rain. You know that this garden is not going to last much longer than the gardener's lifetime." Morris dedicated the movie to his mother and stepfather, who had recently died.
Another theme is communication: Morris quotes Mendez as saying that "he's seeking some kind of connection with `the other,' which he defines as that which exists completely independent of ourselves. And then he talks about looking into the eye of a naked mole rat and thinking, I know you are, you know I am. It occurred to me that all of my movies are about language. About how language reveals secrets about people. It's a way into their heads." [9]
The film received positive reviews from critics including Roger Ebert [10] and A. O. Scott. [11] On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a rating of 91% based on 33 reviews. [12] Several critics called it one of the best films of 1997. [13] Ebert wrote that "Errol Morris has long since moved out of the field of traditional documentary. Like his subjects, he is arranging the materials of life according to his own notions. They control shrubs, lions, robots and rats, and he controls them. Fast, Cheap & Out of Control doesn't fade from the mind the way so many assembly line thrillers do. Its images lodge in the memory. To paraphrase the old British beer ad, Errol Morris refreshes the parts the others do not reach." [14]
The film's musical score was composed Caleb Sampson and performed by the Alloy Orchestra. It is characterized as circus-like, sometimes frenzied or haunting, and features percussion (particularly mallets and xylophones) to give it a metallic, technological or futuristic flavor. A theme from the score appeared on Leonard Maltin's Critic's Choice Best Movie Themes of the 90s compilation soundtrack. [15]
The film is available on VHS and DVD, [16] while the soundtrack is available on CD. [17]
Errol Mark Morris is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects, and the invention of the Interrotron. In 2003, his The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. His film The Thin Blue Line placed fifth on a Sight & Sound poll of the greatest documentaries ever made. Morris is known for making films about unusual subjects; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of an animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot scientist, and a naked mole-rat specialist.
Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He was the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing style and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. Ebert endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Spike Lee, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose first published review he wrote. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America." Per The New York Times, "The force and grace of his opinions propelled film criticism into the mainstream of American culture. Not only did he advise moviegoers about what to see, but also how to think about what they saw."
The Atomic Cafe is a 1982 American documentary film directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty. It is a compilation of clips from newsreels, military training films, and other footage produced in the United States early in the Cold War on the subject of nuclear warfare. Without any narration, the footage is edited and presented in a manner to demonstrate how misinformation and propaganda was used by the U.S. government and popular culture to ease fears about nuclear weapons among the American public.
The Thin Blue Line is a 1988 American documentary film by Errol Morris, about the trial and conviction of Randall Dale Adams for the 1976 shooting of Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood. Morris became interested in the case while doing research for a film about Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist known in Texas as "Dr. Death" for testifying with "100 percent certainty" of a defendant's recidivism in many trials, including that of Randall Adams. The film centers around the "inconsistencies, incongruities and loose ends" of the case, and Morris, through his investigation, not only comes to a different conclusion, but actually obtains an admission of Adams's innocence from the original suspect of the case, David Harris. The "thin blue line" in the title "refers to what Mr. Morris feels is an ironic, mythical image of a protective policeman on the other side of anarchy".
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. is a 1999 American documentary film by Errol Morris about execution technician Fred A. Leuchter.
Gates of Heaven is a 1978 American independent documentary film produced, directed, and edited by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career.
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, illustrating his observations of the nature of modern warfare. It was directed by Errol Morris and features an original score by Philip Glass. The title derives from the military concept of the "fog of war", which refers to the difficulty of making decisions in the midst of conflict.
A Brief History of Time is a 1991 biographical documentary film about the physicist Stephen Hawking, directed by Errol Morris. The title derives from Hawking's bestselling 1988 book A Brief History of Time, but, whereas the book is solely an explanation of cosmology, the film is also a biography of Hawking, featuring interviews with some of his family members and colleagues. The film is scored by frequent Morris collaborator Philip Glass.
Grizzly Man is a 2005 American documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast and conservationist Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard at Katmai National Park, Alaska. The film includes some of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with brown bears before 2003, and of interviews with people who knew or were involved with Treadwell, in addition to professionals who deal with wild bears.
S.F.W. is a 1994 American black comedy film directed by Jefery Levy and written by Levy and Danny Rubin. Based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Andrew Wellman, it stars Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon.
Vernon, Florida is a 1981 American documentary film produced and directed by Errol Morris profiling various residents living within the town of Vernon, Florida. Originally titled Nub City, this follow-up to Gates of Heaven initially focused on residents of the Southern town who cut off their own limbs as a way to collect insurance money. After Morris's life was threatened by the subjects of the film, he re-worked Nub City into Vernon, Florida.
Encounters at the End of the World is a 2007 American documentary film by Werner Herzog about Antarctica and the people who choose to spend time there. It was released in North America on June 11, 2008, and distributed by ThinkFilm. At the 81st Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature.
The Interrotron is a device invented by filmmaker Errol Morris for conducting video interviews, allowing interviewers and subjects to make eye contact with each other while looking directly at the camera lens. This is achieved through a modified teleprompter setup, with the interviewer's face displayed on a monitor in front of the camera lens and the subject's face on a similar setup facing the interviewer, facilitating a more natural conversation.
Karen Schmeer was a film editor who frequently collaborated with filmmaker Errol Morris.
First Person is an American TV series produced and directed by Errol Morris. The show engaged a varied group of individuals from civil advocates to criminals, and ran for two seasons, in 2000–2001.
Tabloid is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Errol Morris. It tells the story of Joyce McKinney, who was accused of kidnapping and raping Kirk Anderson, an American Mormon missionary in England, in 1977. The incident, known as the Mormon sex in chains case, became a major tabloid story in the United Kingdom and triggered a circulation battle between two popular tabloid newspapers, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror.
Life Itself is a 2014 American biographical documentary film about Chicago film critic Roger Ebert, directed by Steve James and produced by Zak Piper, James and Garrett Basch. The film is based on Ebert's 2011 memoir of the same name. It premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection at the 67th Cannes Film Festival. The 41st Telluride Film Festival hosted a special screening of the film on August 28, 2014. Magnolia Pictures released the film theatrically in the United States and simultaneously via video on demand platforms on July 4, 2014.
The Unknown Known is a 2013 American documentary film about the political career of former U.S. Secretary of Defense and congressman Donald Rumsfeld, directed by Academy Award winning documentarian and filmmaker Errol Morris. It is a summary of 33 hours of interviews that Morris conducted with Rumsfeld over eleven separate sessions during visits to Newton, Massachusetts. The film was released on April 4, 2014, by Radius-TWC, and is dedicated to the memory of Roger Ebert.
Titanica is a 1992 IMAX documentary film about the RMS Titanic. The film was directed by Stephen Low and narrated by Cedric Smith, Anatoly Sagalevich and Ralph White. The film mostly focuses on footage taken at the wreck of the RMS Titanic, also featuring footage of the expedition crew searching the wreck as well as interviews with Titanic survivors Frank John William Goldsmith and Eva Hart. Using Eva and the crew members, Low conveys the voice of the documentary by showing the Titanic's wreckage as a graveyard which is to be respected and treated with caution and care. It was the second feature-length IMAX film released, following Stones at the Max in 1991. An edited 40 minute version of the film was also later released for IMAX theatres in 1995; this version had new narration by Leonard Nimoy, though it retains most of White's narration. This edited version later became the basis for another edited version released in 1997, featuring 27 more minutes of interviews with Ralph White, Emory Kristof, and other experts.
American Dharma is a 2018 British-American documentary film directed by Errol Morris. The film follows the career of political strategist Steve Bannon. The film was released on November 1, 2019, by Utopia.
