Vernon, Florida Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Vernon, Florida 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.

Nub City?

Errol Morris had one documentary in mind when he traveled to a kind of rural backwater in Florida, but perhaps unavoidably, he ended up making something completely different. Morris is on hand in a supplementary interview included with Vernon, Florida detailing how his initial conception was to have been centered around a rather disturbing but somehow completely “Floridian” subterfuge whereby a bunch of residents in the panhandle had evidently figured out if they maimed themselves horribly, they could collect some pretty significant insurance money. The “nubs” of “Nub City” were a reference to stumps of former appendages once attached to these people, since there was a rash of folks shooting off their arms and legs in a rather unsettling example of insurance fraud. Morris ultimately wisely realized that asking people to talk about this deceit on camera might lead to unpleasant ramifications and that, along with what was evidently a violent smackdown of Morris by someone not happy at all with Morris’ line of questioning, led to this more free form piece that, despite having virtually no “nubs” whatsoever, is still a remarkably engaging if completely gonzo look at a bunch of, um, interesting people in the titular town.

It’s really best not to know very much about the “interview” subjects in the film (“interview” is once again a misleading term, since Morris doesn’t really interact with the people on screen and they simply talk), but suffice it to say some of the people discussing everything from what a jeweler sees in his magnifying lens to turkey hunting to the supposed four “bowls” (i.e., lobes) of the brain are in fact kind of indescribable. Morris doesn’t really seem to be laughing at these people, some of whom at least seem to have senses of humor about themselves, but with others coming off as downright deadly serious.

Vernon, Florida 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.

This video presentation arguably has a bit more of a traditional "CRI" source look to it than Gates of Heaven. The palette here is a bit wan at times, with primaries looking slightly skewed. That said, detail levels are often quite excellent, and everything from some of the thick tufted fabrics worn by some of the guys to less "human" things like the shell of a tortoise or even possum fur look nicely precise. There is occasional damage to be spotted along the way, mostly in the form of things like small white flecks and the like. Grain resolves naturally, though can occasionally look slightly gritty, as in an opening sequence showing a truck belching out an insane amount of exhaust (I'm wondering if it was actually some kind of exterminating mist, since it seems to be coming out of the bed rather than a muffler).

Vernon, Florida 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.

Vernon, Florida features an LPCM Mono track that capably supports what is essentially a series of talking head sequences. There are a lot of outdoor scenes here where ambient environmental sounds dart through the mix, and everything sounds natural and problem free throughout.

Vernon, Florida Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Errol Morris (1080p; 12:08) features Morris talking about his initial, abandoned idea for a documentary on so-called "Nub City", as well as information on the peculiar but kind of wonderful people he ended up actually making this documentary about.

Vernon, Florida Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I frankly wouldn't really know where to begin in attempting to detail some of what is discussed in Vernon, Florida. Morris jokes in the supplement about being warned about going there since it would be dangerous (especially if he followed his first instinct and made a documentary about insurance fraud), but what no one seemed to tell Morris is how flagrantly bizarre some of the people in this town were. Still, that's what makes this such an inescapably amazing piece. Video here has more of a slightly skewed CRI look than Gates of Heaven, but is certainly watchable. Audio is fine, and the supplementary interview with Morris very enjoyable. Recommended.