69. Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

Errol Morris’ Fast, Cheap & Out of Control features a topiary gardener, mole-rat specialist, robot designer, and lion tamer. It is, in short, a signifying gesture in a filmmaking career of peerless idiosyncrasy.

The selection of these four men and their studies, particularly, is arbitrary; they are disassociated starting points bound by the same destination. Inevitably, the more these men talk, the more their thoughts cohere. The resolute triumph of Errol Morris’ champion documentary is that the film, itself, is a study parallel to each of the men interviewed. Watching it, in turn, is potentially introspective.

Musings over the behavioral tendencies of the naked mole-rat, among other bits of extraneous information (why hand shears are favored over electric shears and why lions are distracted by the legs of a chair are but two peculiarly interesting facts learned) may seem irrelevant, though such moments contain a transcendent insight. To discount the philosophy of these weird men is to disregard their position as individuals; these, mind you, are not characters in a film.

The film’s technique merits equal praise. Caleb Sampson’s cherubic score is perfectly attuned to the film, complimenting and mimicking reprisals of footage from a circus. The visual component of the film is consistently varied between film stocks and formats: 8, 16, and 35 millimeter film; video; color and black & white; and stock footage. This is an unusual documentary -- to say the least -- with a constructive factor in its cinematography.

In the words of robot scientist Rodney Brooks, who also supplies the film’s title, “You analyze it almost too much, life becomes almost meaningless.” The same may be applied to critiquing the film: in addition to its ability to be scrupulously analyzed, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control is totally entertaining – which is perhaps the most praise that can be given to a documentary. (Rumsey Taylor)