Errol Morris is one of the most original and interesting American independent filmmakers. He specialises in documentaries - but his documentaries aren`t the least bit like anyone else`s - as you`ll know if you`ve been lucky enough to see Gates Of Heaven (about a pet cemetary), The Thin Blue Line (a real life murder mystery) or A Brief History Of Time, Morris` trubute to Stephen Hawkins. His latest film, the superbly titled Fast, Cheap And Out Of Control, is one of his most intriguing efforts. He homes in on four obsessive characters - a lion tamer who hero-worshipped the legendary lion tamer and sometime film star, Clyde Beatty; a topiarist, who makes impressive animals out of garden bushes; a scientist who works with the strange mole-rat, a rodent which lives like an ant; and another scientist who works with robots, specialising in insect-like machines.Morris intercuts interviews and footage of these four at work with archive material from cheesey old movies and movie serials; and he sometimes shows us one obsessive character while the soundtrack features another. The message of this film is oblique to say the least; Morris clearly loves these curious characters, and regrets that their kind of unique dedication may be a thing of the past. But even if you don`t subscribe to the filmmaker`s conclusions, you can`t help admiring the dash and humour with which this bewitching collage is assembled, or the superlative use of the music, by Caleb Sampson, which accompanies it all.
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