Filmmaker Errol Morris has a really great job; he collects stories. Not in the way a journalist might piece together an exposé or a fiction writer slogs through research for a sound foundation, but with passionate interest in people.
He has been called a documentarian, but his films are so much bigger and more provocative than the subject at hand. Gates of Heaven might consider pet cemeteries, The Thin Blue Line might question our legal system, but both films will spark intense thought and emotion on many levels.
His amazing television series First Person explores the lives of some fairly unusual people: a serial killer groupie, a lawyer for mobsters, and a crime-scene cleaner for starters. The short format of these episodes illustrate his particular gift at finding and telling a story by diving into the meat of it. There isn't a beginning, middle and end so much as a brilliant moment; in this way, he stops time and magically expands it.
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