Vernon, Florida

Errol Morris' Vernon, Florida

Errol Morris went to Florida with the intention of making a documentary called Nub City, about people who cut off their own limbs for insurance money. That project fell through when they threatened to murder him, and out of its ashes sprung Vernon, Florida. It embodies one of my favorite circumstances that can arise in art: that of chance and hope, last minute scrambling for something to make, just to appease your audience. I love the act of rummaging, assembling something great from the pieces left over, utilizing the unexpected once it becomes available. I have no interest in documentaries that take some stance on a certain issue. Vernon, Florida is merely an earnest observation of people, rendered in a light that puts their character into deep relief, outlining those intensely personal traits and eccentricities that make them individuals. Albeit particularly odd individuals.
This is a film I've dreamed of making.

I recommend watching the film before reading any further.

There's not much I enjoy more than talking to people I don't know, that I've never met and, once we've finished talking, probably never see again. It's a different matter than talking to friends, and yeah, sometimes it just ends in akward tedium. But then there are those transcendent moments: the foul-mouthed hippie sculptor in Paris (the one who actually left the US after Bush was elected, possibly the only man who took that promise to heart), the fat man with his shirt unbuttoned (beer in hand) in the campsite in Alabama, the two guys my roommate and I helped out of a breakdown thanks solely to a series of coincidences. I'd love to capture these moments on film somehow. And that's what Vernon, Florida is. Nearly an hour of conversations like that. With people you remember.
And you remember them. Oh, yes. The simple opening with that off-beat music (harmonica and old man humming?) and the truck moving down country roads, spraying what I presume to be some kind of insecticide, perhaps mosquito repellant. I'm familiar with these small, Southern towns, I know these places. The images ring true. And we hear the first words, spoken by an old man with a strange, almost adolescent voice:
"Reality. You mean this is the real world? (a chuckle) I never thought of that."

Not everyone will understand this film. Some will see it as humorous caricatures. That's a fucking pity, to say the least. These will be the same people who laughed at Grizzly Man without understanding what it was about Timothy Treadwell that drove him out to that wilderness. But when I see these people. . .

The one guy who talks incessantly about turkey hunting. Nothing but turkey hunting. Who understands what a double-gobble is and what it means. The utterly baffling sermon about the word "Therefore." The crawling sand. The pet collector with the fantastic story about the mule carcass. The man who's written dog shit and cat shit with two different hands at the same time, done it lots of times. And yeah, I laughed at times. In part because they reminded me that sometimes really simple things still fascinate me. Although I still don't know what wigglers are.

I'm talking a lot about meeting people, and these people in the film, who they are and why that's important. But that's the beauty of the film. Errol Morris made a brilliant film by letting it make itself. Oh, he edited it and he did it well. He picked great stuff, and arranged it well. Very well. (And I wonder what he left out.) But his greatest contribution is that he lets the camera act as our eyes and never tries to obstruct that view. Filmmakers like Michael Moore block out their lenses with their own personalities. Errol Morris knows that these people, the ones he's filming, are far more interesting than any less-than-witty half-jokes could ever be. The people speak for themselves, and the film does what film does best. It watches.

Stan Brakhage once said something about the documentation of true events on film. He differentiated between a documentary and a genuine document, stating that documentaries were "airy documents". It was great to see someone agree with me, and couldn't think of a better way to phrase it. I'll be referring to that statement a lot, I imagine, but Vernon, Florida is a document in the purest sense, without agenda or political fluff.

Errol Morris's careful fingerprints can be found one other place. The film wanders about freely, only constrained, we can assume, by the size of the town. We meet an interesting range of people with all sorts of stories to tell, with no connection aside from all living in Vernon. Yet something runs through the center of it, a very thin but very distinct thread, or a suggestion of a thread. It can nearly be ignored, because Morris wants us to see them for who they are. But we do see a theme arise, however briefly, at certain moments. Rare instances that give us a glimpse of some melancholy truth lurking beneath the stories and ramblings the excited townspeople tell to the camera.

We hear it when the cop is talking, about how crimes seldom happen. That, when they do, they are the trivial sort. How at the moment, his radar gun is in for repairs so all he can do is sit and watch the cars go past.
In the man showing us fuzzy pictures of stars and telling the joke about two sailors, "Yeah, that's just the top of it."
With the man, talking about a four track mind and the demonstration of his skills in this department.
Those finding God (or something like Him) in everyday moments, finding answers to their prayers.
The belief in the wonder of crawling sand.
It's hinted at in almost every moment we see, every moment Morris chooses to show us. The suggestion of it. And there's an optimism there, don't get me wrong, and something beautiful about their lives. But still. . .

It's most prominent at the ending. The thirty five buzzards looming over the camera. We know why they're there, crouching over the struggling remains of this dying town. In all these stories, these tall tales and obsessions and showings off, we see their accompanying regrets, missed opportunities, lost lives; the camera never leaves Vernon, and does anyone else? Waiting for something to happen. Justifying their existences.

And the last words we hear: "I wish there were as many turkeys as there are buzzards." We know what that means, when the man who loves turkey hunting so much (too much) says it. If these people could only do more than count buzzards and wish them turkeys.


Links:
Imdb Listing
Errol Morris' Website

For background about the city of Vernon and some context, you can read the article here.