Events

An Evening with Errol Morris

When:
Tuesday, December 30, 2003, 4:00pm - 4:00pm
Description:

Errol Morris, innovative director of Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line and Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control, will visit the University of Chicago and present a public lecture about his work as the first in the Nuveen Visiting Filmmakers series.

With his portraits of the everyday, bizarre and noteworthy, Errol Morris has altered our expectations and perceptions of documentary film. His distinctive approach - including a lengthy interviewing process and investigative techniques honed in his former career as a detective - produces captivating, psychologically acute work. Mr. Morris's groundbreaking 1978 documentary Gates of Heaven, which depicts pet cemeteries in California, was described by Roger Ebert as "one of the ten best films of all time." Billed as "the first movie mystery to actually solve a murder," and voted the best film of the year in a Washington Post survey of over one hundred film critics, 1988's The Thin Blue Line is credited with overturning the conviction of Randall Dale Adams for the murder of Dallas police officer Robert Wood. The 1997 multiple award-winning feature Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control was selected as part of the 2000 Biennial at the Whitney Museum. Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. garnered a spot on the "Top Ten' lists of many major publications in 2000 for its astounding portrayal of execution engineer and Holocaust-denier Leuchter.

Mr. Morris's latest film, 2003's The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, reflects on the last century through the eyes of former Secretary of Defense McNamara, combining archival footage, recreations, declassified White House recordings, and an original score by composer Phillip Glass.

In addition to the numerous awards his films have earned, Errol Morris has received three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship.

Co-sponsored by Committee on Cinema & Media Studies, DOC Films, and the Nuveen Visiting Filmmaker Fellowships. Special thanks to Michael Barker, Co-President of Sony Pictures Classics, for his support of this event.