After viewing Errol Morris’s “Vernon, Florida,” all I can really say is that it was…interesting. This goes for all of his films as well. I’m not saying they are bad at all, but just incredibly different from anything I’ve ever seen. Maybe that’s why he does not call his films documentaries.
The most significant feature that stood out the most in the film is the people. Apparently Morris had gone to Vernon, Florida to make a movie about the real-life people who cut off their body parts in order to collected more insurance money; he called the film “Nub City.” He was badly beaten for propsing the making of this film, but realized that he loved the people there. Which brought the movie “Vernon, Florida” to the rest of the country.
I think I can see what Morris saw as he entered the town that second time, fixed on creating this film. I think he saw the perfect vehicle, or vehicles should I say, that could take the words coming out of their mouths and make them into a kind of philosophy. Morris could have easily seen that the people of Vernon, Florida had been seaching for the meaning of life; they had been around the block and seen a few things that sets the world in its place. If a wealthy man were to enter the town of Vernon in an expensive suit, ready to discuss what they believe is the true meaning of life, many viewers would probably laugh at the obsurdity of it all. Those people lived in that town and believed they knew more about life and its secrets than anyone else.
How could you go wrong with filming a man who speaks about the meaning of life, while sounding like Mickey Mouse as an old man-rodent. There’s the hunter who says that hearing “Gobble, Gobbel” is the best diariah medicine in the world. And you cannot forget his pal Snake. A man who speaks about using his brain and picking up brains. There was even a man who had a possum that he was saving for an auction. These are not ordinary people, and I believe that is why Morris found them so interesting. I even found them interesting. Every one of these people had a different view on finding the door to the meaning of life; but they are all trying to head in the same direction. I think I’ll have to refer to “Chappelle’s Show” in saying that with regard to all of Morris’s films that we’ve seen so far, he “keeps it real.”