nick broomfield // errol morris

The cinema of Nick Broomfield and Errol Morris can easily be seen as supplements of each other // Both are contemporaries and documentary filmmakers, yes — However, for Broomfield, the subject (and their cooperation) is not the intention of the document: it's of a captured ambiance, an experienced perception, to feel what it's like to be so close to the Sun // Morris, on the other hand, acts as the discoverer of some amazing arching story, giving it a shave and a good hair cut, and documents the most vivid telling of that story by the various personalities involved (nine shots creating a tenth idea). Broomfield, telling; Morris, told.



























The significant contrast lies in their play with the subjective and the objective; Broomfield maintains himself as an active character in the unfolding of his films, sometimes portraying the dead-ends and failures of the work itself (financial backers leaving due to controversy, inability to arrange an interview with the central subjects of the film, etc) // Whereas Errol Morris has literally fused his face into the camera lens, in a protrusion he calls the Interrotron, attempting to create an immersive, comfortable unfolding of being from the personal sources directly: Morris's face simply acts as a surrogate for all the faces, for all the eyes of any spectator — and it shows: the quality of revelation from each subject is so over-flowing and joyous, in a richness surpassing most of the existent art-form, I'm compelled to say Morris has struck an incredible accord with this technique. Yet, Broomfield will meet his subjects for the first time with the camera rolling, catching them awkwardly off-guard, as he enters into the room.

Of their respective filmographies, 'Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" (1993), by Morris, and 'Fetishes' (1996), by Broomfield, struck me as the most affective; vividly and efficiently fleshing out the most recognizable elements of their distinctions: however, remaining grounded in the nature of the fringe pop Western tabloid article, as do all their films, in a fascination with the culture of the Grand Colonizers (America + Britain); unlocking a resonance with some kind of macro-sympathetic condition, the transcendent function, by way the exploration of the subject's / environment's hyper-specialization: this is both. // One is clean, one is dirty; one reads his thoughts in voice-overs, the other can startle the spectator by the unexpected sound of his off-camera voice — The polarity between these two filmmaker's styles, while still maintaining a sense of harmony in their shared objectives, is another example of the Cinema's unique line of versatility; of how slippery notions such as "reality" "truth" and "perspective" appear, especially delivered in the medium who's substance is the fragmentation and fixation of reality itself. With only a 125 year history, much is yet to be discovered, reflected, and acted in the phenomenal world by these projections of the inner-self constructed (and translated into the mind as shades of) reality, through all the unimaginable cultural movements and evolutions.

in order:
Fetishes - (1996)
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. - (1999)
The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife (1991)
The Thin Blue Line - (1988)
Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam - (1995)
Vernon, Florida - (1981)
Fetishes - (1996)
The Thin Blue Line - (1988)