Mark Singer's Predilections - Tatiana Gordon

I thought that these links might be useful in case anyone was interested in watching some clips from a few of the films mentioned in the article:

Gates of Heaven: http://www.errolmorris.com/film/gates_clip.html

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRiBIhcWGJE&search=herzog

Edison's film Electrocuting an Elephant: http://www.23nlpeople.com/media/~elephant_dead.mpg

Topsy (the elephant) killed three people and was essentially sentenced to death. Edison decided to film Topsy's death in order to promote his own electric current (DC) by using the AC current to kill various animals, thus proving it was "dangerous."

Comments

[Yao Xu]

Thanks so much! I watched the Gates of Heaven clip and I thought Mrs. Rasmussen looked pretty creepy. Anyways, in terms of the article itself，　I thought Morris was a interesting guy; some of his filming techniques can indeed by applied to journalism for when we are interviewing others. He says to "Shut up and let people talk" because as Scott says, if they talk long enough, the truth will come out. And as Mrs. Rasmussen showed during her interview, she contradicted some of the things she said. Morris also says to add "no special effects, what you see is what you get." I think this can be helpful because many of the things we have already mentioned in class about writing the profile also connects to the way Morris views his filmmaking： we should let things flow and see where it takes us; which organization of paragraphs work best, which story are we most attracted to; tell the story as the interviewee wants it to be told.