DOC NYC 2010: Talking to Errol Morris

“I regret, therefore I exist,” said Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris when asked if he would change anything in his ouvre of acclaimed documentaries. “It might be a greediness on my part.”

The director of films including Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line, and Gates of Heaven, spoke for more than an hour about his career, the captivating subjects of his films and the nature of God and truth on Sunday at NYU’s Kimmel Center. The conversation, led by author and Slate columnist Ron Rosenbaum, was part of NYC Doc’s Festival Spotlight section.

“There’s a puzzle about people – what motivates them, what is going on inside their heads,” Morris said. “Trying to figure out what’s going on inside people’s heads is probably the center of what I do.”

Morris described his practice of getting his subjects to speak at length without much questioning.

“I was interviewing mass murderers before I became a filmmaker,” he said. “I would try to say nothing. I would go into a house or prison. I’d put a tape recorder on a table…and see how long I could go without saying anything. I got it to an hour where I could sit there and not say anything.”

When asked if he believes in God, Morris said that if there is a God, he must be “a rather mean-spirited fellow.” A self-proclaimed misanthrope, the director later elaborated that it’s a “God who goes out of his way to screw things up.”

He got further laughs as he elaborated: “Darwin could not be right because if the world had been produced by natural selection, the world would be better than it is.”

Morris did admit, at Rosenbaum’s suggestion, that the misanthrope characteristic is just a pose.

“I actually love what I do,” Morris said. “I think the world is a crazy place.”

–Kari Wethington

See more videos from In Conversation: Errol Morris, and the rest of festival on DOC NYC’s YouTube channel.

(Video by Jill Woodward)