documentary depression

Hokay-I have a lot of catching up to do, but I would first like to get a post out here about Errol Morris. I (unfortunately) couldn’t make it to the screening of “The Thin Blue Line” due to my night class scheduled on mondays at the same time so I have not yet seen it, but from what I’ve seen in “Gates of Heaven” and “Vernon, Florida” I have come to a brutal conclusion: Morris films make me want to die. (Please don’t take this too seriously, although…well, let me explain first.) A common theme I keep seeing in his “Narrative Nonfiction” is experience (or lack of) despite how old most of his interviewees are. They are, as Prof. Campbell mentioned today in class, constantly searching. Although he said they are searching for meaning of life and existance and the way things are how they happen to be, I think it extends further (or “furthur” as those in Harding’s Beat Generation class might understand…or anyone who identifies with The Merry Pranksters could…but I digress.) I see in almost all of his subjects a thread of loneliness which extends from interview to interview, (the upcoming might be odd, but…) I feel that there is so much loneliness thread, that if you could gather them all up into a yarn ball, you couldn’t possibly move it any more (ala Katamari Domaci).
Whether they become attached to their pets (so much so they obsess after them after death and people profit) or are all alone collecting tortoises and other rodents all alone, I feel they are searching not only for the meaning of life but also for companionship.
This frightens me.
It frightens me because whenever I watch a Morris film I am afraid to age.
This might be delving a little too deep into my own psychoses and fears, but it makes me wonder if everyone, at some level, ends up like an Errol Morris film subject. Maybe we all are now and I just can’t see it, but I am afraid (thanks a lot, Professor Campbell-haha) to grow old and senile and live in some podunk town and rake my front yard thinking I know more than every book out there.
It also makes me wonder if Morris ever feels this way-if his own films ever depress him-not so much out of work load and stress, but out of his own subjects and themes-or does he see hope in them, knowing that we all have questions that no one else can really answer and we all continue to wonder together?