Errol Morris Season

More 4 started a season of Errol Morris films this week. A very short series. It started on Monday and ends tonight.

It started with Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. about a man who specialised in modifying electric chairs. His work with execution devices led to him being asked to become an ‘expert witness’ in a Holocaust denier’s trial.

This was to prove his downfall as he hamfistedly attempted to prove that Auschwitz housed no gas chambers. This led to his wife leaving him (the trip to Auschwitz was their honeymoon) and his career in ruins, so much so that the only people he could hang about with were Holocaust deniers.

Last night it was the turn of the legendary The Thin Blue Line, the documentary about the killing of a policeman in 1976. Gripping all the way through, it’s a great example of how misguided the death penalty is.

My favourite thing though was in the documentary A Brief History of Errol Morris where he discussed some of his unrealised projects. He spoke of reading about a 22 pound chicken called Weirdo who was ‘the size of a sheep’. Weirdo had a son Ralph who was even bigger. Along with his buddy Werner Herzog, Morris came up with an idea to make a film featuring an actor who Herzog knew who was just over 2 feet tall riding on the world’s smallest horse around the world’s biggest tree being chased by Ralph a chicken the size of a sheep. Such a shame that didn’t come off.