Filed under: Uncategorized
Here are some initial thoughts on Gates of Heaven:
-Brilliant
This movie seems on the outside to be a boring documentary with a lot of senior citizens talking about their dead pets. However, I believe this is one of the densest film I’ve ever viewed. I think I need to watch it again just to begin to understand the mulitude of issues it brings up: brother-brother relationships, love relationships (pets, people, family), how we treat the senior citizens in our culture, how we treat our pets, the ethicality of business, what we obsess about (1. pets, 2. music, 3. love, 4. pet cemetary, etc. etc.)
-Shots
Some of the backgrounds in this movie were amazing. The cactus one in particular comes to mind. I thought the opening shot was great too, the old man in a wheel-chair framed by the huge, vibrant green tree. I thought it somewhat interesting that the men speaking about business practices were shot at different angles then most others. There was one man in yellow shirt where the camera was almost looking up at him, and the rendering businessman, and the man in the red shirt were both filmed slightly form the side. They were never straight on, which led me to believe the filmmakers did not believe business to be “straight-on” or honest.
-Origin of the film
Aftering doing some research I learned that the film was created as the resuly of bet between the director, Erol Morris, and filmmaker Werner Herzog (of Grizzly Man fame), that if he made a movie about pet cemetaries then Herzog would eat his shoe. This lead to the documentary “Werner Herzog Eat His Shoe.” I couldn’t find a clip of this anywhere, so if anyone knows where I can find it let me know.
I think it would be naive to say that this was the sole, or even a main reason to make this movie. I’m sure Morris had the idea far before he made the bet with Herzog. I would be very interested to learn the true intentions Morris had for created such a film.
2 Comments so far
Leave a comment
Yes indeedy. Actually, the bet was that Morris wouldn’t finish it. The bet was not the inspiration. More at 1 today!
Comment by gcampbel 03.16.07 @ 8:45 amThat’s funny, you guys watched it in color, but when I watched it by myself on DVD it was in black and white. It sort of made everyone look like characters in a Lynch film being shot by Jim Jarmusch, but that’s beside the point.
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is a bonus feature on the Criterion presentation of Burden Of Dreams, a documentary about Herzog’s chaotic (when is it not chaotic with him?) shooting of the film ‘Fitzcarraldo.’
Comment by Craig 03.16.07 @ 9:12 amLeave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>