Errol Morris and Werner Herzog Planned To Dig Up a Grave for a Movie – Armessa Movie News

Errol Morris may be one of the most respected and influential filmmakers working today. From his classic documentaries like The Thin Blue Line to the commercials he did for Miller High Life, his style of filmmaking has been a source of endless inspiration for documentarians since he first picked up a camera. Yet, when you look at his films, the razor-sharp precision, and the courage of his interviews, you would never imagine just how rough the start of his career was. The first film he ever finished period, Gates of Heaven, was when he was 30. This was not due to a lack of effort, but rather the opposite. Morris’ journey began in academia, crossing both coasts and multiple of the most prestigious universities in the entire world, until he ended up in Plainfield, Wisconsin. This was not by chance, but rather to pursue a story, that of serial killer Ed Gein.

Ed Gein, one of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th century, would famously serve as the inspiration for Buffalo Bill, Leatherface, and Psycho‘s Norman Bates. Morris ceaselessly pursued Gein, filming multiple interviews with him that would serve as the basis for what would hopefully be his first film. During the process, to make a long story short, Morris and another cinematic legend, Werner Herzog, had crafted a plan to dig up Gein’s mother’s grave for the film, as detailed by The New Yorker. Explaining how we got there will be a very fun ride.

How Did Errol Morris Get Into Filmmaking?

To understand Errol Morris, it is integral to understand his background. Morris was born in New York, and went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for his undergraduate education, obtaining a degree in history. Following a few odd jobs, he somehow managed to maneuver his way into grad school at Princeton, studying the history of science, a field “in which he had,” as the New Yorker article puts it, “absolutely no background.” Following a disastrous time in which his doctoral advisor apparently assaulted him over his studies, Morris then went to Berkeley, to get a doctorate in philosophy. Once again, he struggled, referring to the school as a “world of pedants”, but he did make advances in his interest in film, becoming a regular attendee at the Pacific Film Archive and diving into world cinema, including the films of future grave robbing accomplice Werner Herzog.

When Did Errol Morris’ Fascination With Ed Gein Begin?

While studying philosophy, Errol Morris became interested in the philosophical aspects of killing, leading him back to Wisconsin, to interview the aforementioned Ed Gein. Even with his level of notoriety and already massive impact on culture through Alfred Hitchcock and Psycho, Morris was apparently the first person to take an interest in Gein, interviewing him several times in 1975, along with diving into the history of Plainfield, and the numerous murderers who had lived there after Gein. Morris at this stage of his career was already a maverick director without having ever made a film. He had filmed hundreds of hours of interviews, had snuck into and been promptly thrown out of state hospitals, and obtained a master’s degree in Philosophy while also being dumped from the Doctoral program. All in all, a lot to achieve before your first film, period.

How Did Werner Herzog & Errol Morris Meet?

Werner Herzog was cut from the same cloth as Morris, but his journey towards Plainfield was quite different. Rather than pursue academia, he began making films in his late teens, working at a steel mill to finance his films. By the time he ended up in Wisconsin, he had traveled the world making films, from documentaries on African doctors to period piece epics. Even though the two had very different roads to their meeting, there was already mutual respect. Morris respected Herzog’s devotion to the strangeness of the world, and Herzog respected Morris equally “despite Morris’s never having shot a single foot of film,” as noted in The New Yorker.

Herzog had been introduced to Morris through Tom Luddy, the director of the Pacific Film Archive. They had discussed a theory Morris had revolving around Gein’s mother’s grave. Essentially, Morris had come to believe that through digging into surrounding graves, Gein had tunneled through them and into his mother’s, rather than digging into it directly. Herzog was fascinated by this idea, and the two struck up a plan to bust out the shovels and dig up the grave themselves, to test the validity of Morris’ theory.

When Herzog arrived, however, he was alone; when he called Morris, he found that he had cold feet, and stayed in Berkeley. Morris returned to Plainfield however, but this time without Herzog. While still recording interviews in 1976, Herzog popped back up, but not for Gein. Rather, Herzog had been struck by the Wisconsin atmosphere and decided to film his own movie there, Stroszek. This actually caused a bit of tension between Herzog and Morris, as Morris felt Herzog was stealing his subject for his own film. When Herzog left to return home after filming, he attempted to give Morris two thousand dollars for his time and to help his directing career. When Morris threw the envelope out the window, Herzog retrieved it, saying “Please don’t do that again.”

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Why We Needed Errol Morris’ Ed Geins Documentary

Errol Morris’ Ed Gein documentary never materialized, and no footage has been released from it. Herzog would go on to release Stroszek, and continue his career moving boats over mountains, and appearing in documentaries to discuss vampires. However, the two would cross paths again in a quite funny manner. In 1978, after years of attempts, ideas, and location changes, Morris released Gates of Heaven, about a pet cemetery in Napa Valley. While it had a small, protracted release at the time, it is now seen as a classic documentary and was cited by Roger Ebert as one of the ten best films ever in the 1991 Sight and Sound poll.

The first step in a long and fruitful career, Gates of Heaven shows Errol Morris’ innate ability to get people to open up in front of the camera while abandoning the verite style in favor of sit-down interviews and a very deliberate style of filmmaking. The way he gets his subjects to display themselves makes just the idea of him not making a documentary about Gein one of the biggest misses in cinematic history.

Even though their plan never happened, Herzog did do one more thing for Morris. The story goes that in a conversation years prior, Herzog said to Morris “If you ever finish a film, I’ll eat my shoe”. Tom Luddy, the aforementioned director of the Pacific Film Archive, stated it was in a confrontational manner, Herzog states it was out of encouragement, and Morris claims it never happened. But at the film’s premiere in 1978, and documented by another famed documentarian, Les Blank, Herzog did in fact, eat his shoe live on stage. A fascinating relationship between two of the most singular voices in the history of the medium, Herzog and Morris made their mark together without ever shooting anything at all.