Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

Gates of Heaven Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 16, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of Gates of Heaven / Vernon, Florida.

Errol Morris remains one of the most distinctive voices in the annals of contemporary documentary film, and in a way it’s maybe just a little surprising that it took him until 2003 to finally win an Academy Award, an Oscar bestowed for his riveting piece on a former Secretary of Defense in the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson adminstrations, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. This appealing release from The Criterion Collection aggregates two of Morris’ early pieces, including Gates of Heaven, the film which initially brought him considerable attention and which famously led to the inimitable Werner Herzog literally eating his shoe as part of a bet he made with Morris to encourage Morris to get his film made despite any funding or other production obstacles (the Blu-ray disc includes a nice supplementary documentary detailing Herzog’s “adventures in cuisine”). If one of Morris’ most famous pieces, The Thin Blue Line is, along with the McNamara documentary, probably accurately perceived as having a noticeable point of view, both of the films in this set are kind of curious “fly on the wall” offerings whose only “perspective” may be the general sense of disbelief that people like the ones found in both of these pieces actually exist. Gates of Heaven has more of a narrative thrust than Vernon, Florida (as will be discussed in the reviews of each film), but together they make for a hugely entertaining if often downright weird viewing experience.

Gates of Heaven might make for a curious double feature with either another animal-centric release from The Criterion Collection, Heart of a Dog, or, perhaps a bit more on the darkly comedic side, with Pet Sematary, since the film does in fact detail the history of two pet cemeteries in California. The film begins with the self-confessed “dream” of one guy to build just such a facility, and his initial success in the project, only to have a kind of harrowing turn of events lead to a Stephen King-esque disinterring of hundreds of buried family pets. The story then moves on to a second cemetery (where many of the first set of deceased animals were relocated), where a family feels like they’ve found their “true calling”, albeit one which the two family sons seem kind of reluctantly resigned to continuing.

Aside from the completely unusual underlying (no pun intended) subject of the film, Gates of Heaven is an absolutely wonderful compilation of often incredibly amazing first person confessionals delivered directly to the camera (it's hard to really these interviews, since Morris is never heard, and the people talking are kind of conversational just by themselves). From the really heartfelt plans of Mac, the first guy interviewed, to the actually kind of delicious subtext that underlies a whole glut of family interviews vis a vis the second cemetery, Morris just kind of plops his camera down and lets the "characters" do the rest. It's unforgettable.

Gates of Heaven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The accordion style foldout included with this release (in lieu of an insert booklet) lumps both films together in its verbiage about the transfers:

Gates of Heaven is presented in the director's preferred aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. Vernon, Florida is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 [sic]. On standard 4:3 televisions, the image will appear letterboxed. On standard and widescreen televisions, black bars may also be visible on the left and right to maintain the proper screen format. Supervised by director Errol morris, these new digital transfers were created in 2K resolution on Lasergraphics film scanner from 35 mm color reversal internegatives. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS and Pixel Farm's PFClean, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, and noise management.

I was actually kind of surprised to read this and its "sibling" on this released were sourced from CRIs, since the color here is actually rather good, all things considered. The element does still show occasional signs of damage (watch at the very beginning for a kind of orange bleached streak running down the right side of the frame), but detail levels are quite commendable, helped by Morris' tendency to frame things either with close-ups or midrange shots. Grain generally resolves naturally, but can occasionally look a bit on the gritty side (see screenshot 15).

Gates of Heaven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Criterion's accordion style fold out contains the following verbiage on the soundtracks for both films in this set:

The original monaural soundtracks were remastered at 24 bit from the 35 mm magnetic tracks. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD, AudioCube's integrated worstation, and iZotope RX 4.

Gates of Heaven features an LPCM Mono track that offers good support for the many first person confessionals that make up the bulk of this piece, but also for some rather nice music that shows up late in the film courtesy of one of the sons in the family operating a pet cemetery, a guy who is very gifted guitar player and is shown playing a couple of tunes (one on acoustic, one on electric). Fidelity is fine and there are no problems with dropouts, distortion or other damage.

Gates of Heaven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1080p; 20:17) is an enjoyably weird Les Blank offering from 1980 documenting Herzog's "settlement" of a bet he made with Errol Morris. Fans of this piece may want to check out more of Herzog and Blank, available in Criterion's release of Les Blank: Always for Pleasure.


• Herzog at Telluride (1080p; 1:05) offers a snippet of Herzog talking about Errol Morris and Gates of Heaven at Telluride, also from 1980. This can be found under the Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe submenu.


• Errol Morris (1080p; 19:19) offers the affable Morris giving some biographical background and details about filming Gates of Heaven.

Gates of Heaven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some pet lovers may join me in thinking "the rainbow bridge was never like this" as they watch this intriguing piece from Errol Morris. Both moving and at times rather unexpectedly hilarious (some of the comments from a guy running a rendering facility are unbelievable), Gates of Heaven may have you snuggling with your "fur babies" a little more closely. Technical merits are generally solid, and the supplements very enjoyable. Highly recommended.