I think this is really fantastic and showed it to a class yesterday that found it pretty interesting even though this isn’t the kind of thing that would normally hold their interest. A great entry in Morris’ continued exploration of the amorphous veracity of the documentary image and the legibility of meaning in photographic photorealism when taken out of the context of the actual happening, the recorded event. Anyone have a copy of his new book that just came out about photography? Curious to take a look through it. Anyways, a fantastic documentary short. So glad there was a movie of this odd length to get extremely wide release.
Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK and he acted alone.
PERIOD!
did you watch the piece?
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Really? Nobody else watched it?
it really is a nice, solid piece
Uli, I can only presume there is a conspiracy going on on Mubi to keep people from responding.
Two of my favorite quotes regarding the inevitable tendency towards apophenia, the first of which really stunned me about the distorting effect of observation, analysis or intensified hyper-witness:
“If you put any event under a microscope, you will find a whole dimension of completely weird, incredible things going on…what it means is that if you have any fact which you think is really sinister, right, which really is obviously a fact which can only point to some sinister underpinnings, hey, forget it man, because you can never on your own think up all the non-sinister, perfectly valid explanations for that fact.”
Can a Morris doc about 9/11 truthers and their analysis of the crash footage be far off?
I agree with Uli that this is a good piece and other mubians should watch it.
I just watched the piece, and I really liked it, too. Like many other Morris films, this one about something other than what it appears to be—i.e., it’s not really about the JFK assassination. Imo, the quote Ben S. put up^ gets at what this film is about—and it’s a really interesting point, imo. Ben doesn’t mention that the guy Morris interviews, a writer of a book on the JFK assassination, refers to Quantum physics. He mentions a macro level of history where things go on as expected and nothing really unusual takes place, and then he mentions a more “micro-quantum” level where weird things happen. The umbrella illustrates this theory, and it’s an interesting one.
Here are some other comments and thoughts I had about the subject:
1. I’m not sure that the “macro-level of history” is completely normal or without anything weird. I guess this would depend on what we mean by “macro,” “micro,” and “normal.” I do agree with the general point that if you scrutinize an event hard enough, you’ll find a lot of weird things.
2. I don’t believe the umbrella man shot JFK or was involved with the assassination. However, a part of me wished Morris interviewed the umbrella man himself. I mean, the explanation is wacky, but I want to hear from the guy himself, specifically this: if the open umbrella was a message to JFK, how the heck would JFK know what that referred to?!
3. I think Thompson’s conclusion nullifying sinister theories isn’t entirely correct. Instead, I would conclude that we should be careful about details that seem sinister, but not necessarily rule them out. I also think there’s an opposite lesson to learn here, too—namely, that seemingly obvious and normal explanations may not be true—as the truth may be a lot weirder, including something more sinister.
4. Tangent A: This idea of looking really closely at event and finding weird things reminded me of my thoughts on Rob Reiner and undiscovered auteurs. To wit, if we look hard enough at any director, can we not turn them into an auteur. In other words, all directors are autuers if we try hard enough. This applies to the piece because by looking at the micro/quantum level of a series of films, we can find weird enough things to make a case for a filmmaker being an auteur.
5.Tangent B: The piece made me think of how people here rumors or second hand information and jump to conclusions about people and their intentions. The piece suggests that one shouldn’t jump to conclusions because when you really examine a situation and get to what really happened, there are weird and strange coincidences and explanations. (This relates to what I talked about at the end of #3.)
that was cool!!!!
Yes, it is cool, and it’s only 6 minutes, folks.
Huh, it took me quite a while to figure out why Jazzahola saw fit to PM me asking me to watch this, but the ending certainly rocked righteousness.
But I’m much more interested in this whole Op-Doc set-up itself. Recent articles have stated how Internet video is going to become more and more of a business, as in not in the typical YouTube style but in the way businesses use video on the web to attract customers in and of itself, and so newspapers posting short films in the same way they would serialize, for instance, novels in the past, or maybe even someday printing webisodes so that we’re in a retro Les Vampires -esque era… is really cool to think about.
—PolarisDiB
“a retro Les Vampires -esque era”
Yes. Whoever figures out how to pull off a quality serial delivered directly in installments to people’s iPhones will be king. For a while at least. And it has to actually be good, too, in the confines of these new storytelling constraints (screen size and duration)…no small feat.
“namely, that seemingly obvious and normal explanations may not be true—as the truth may be a lot weirder, including something more sinister.”
Yeah, Jazz, to summarize a quote from Tim O’Brien’s IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS: evidence is, after all, only evident…doesn’t mean it clarifies the big picture. A piece of documented “proof” might actually just turn out to be a red herring when looked at in the correct context.
I’m glad y’all are taking it in, encourage others as well.
And DiB, I agree with you about the op-doc, a very nice product for a paper
And of course, Errol Morris apparently only needs 6 minutes to make my Top 10 of the year. (Granted, that’s not saying much given the nature of films this year…)
Errol Morris is something, isn’t he?
I am not a sucker for conspiracy theories, they all lack plausibility somewhere, but this 6 minute extraordinary tease is wonderful, will we ever get to see the 6 hour interview?
Yeah, worked perfect, got into the story and got out. How can it get into the database, I don’t think it has an imdb page
it does not have a Wikipedia page either…nor is it listed under Morris’ filmography.
I’ll try to gather info and submit it, maybeit will get in eventually
Okay, submitted, hopefully they’ll out it in with the IMDb deal. I’m ready to rate it 5 stars, and I rarely do that
without that is
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Really, it’s a good little doc, check it out
Uli, I admire your diligence here.
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You are right, this is a really terrific doc. Morris is on a role recently, with this and Tabloid. Has anyone read his book? I’ve been meaning to pick it up…
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Anyone else watch it yet?
Uli³Cain
Morris has directed a short doc that is running on the New York Times website about a figure in the JFK Assassination. Give it a look.
The Umbrella Man