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''Fast, Cheap & Out of Control'' is a 1997 documentary film by
filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...
Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamar ...
.


Summary

The film profiles four subjects with extraordinary careers: Dave Hoover, a wild-animal tamer; George Mendonça, a
topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...
gardener at
Green Animals Topiary Garden The Green Animals Topiary Garden, located in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, is the oldest and most northern topiary garden in the United States. The estate overlooks the Narragansett Bay. It contains a large collection of topiaries including eighty ...
in Portsmouth, Rhode Island; Ray Mendez, an expert on
naked mole-rats The naked mole-rat (''Heterocephalus glaber''), also known as the sand puppy, is a burrowing rodent native to the Horn of Africa and parts of Kenya, notably in Somali regions. It is closely related to the blesmols and is the only species in the ...
who has designed an exhibit on the animals for the
Philadelphia Zoo The Philadelphia Zoo, located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, is the first true zoo in the United States. It was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on March 21, 1859, but its openi ...
; and
Rodney Brooks Rodney Allen Brooks (born 30 December 1954) is an Australian roboticist, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, author, and robotics entrepreneur, most known for popularizing the actionist approach to robotics. He was a Panasonic Profe ...
, an
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
scientist who works in
robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...
. In the interviews with the men, which act as the guiding narration for the film, they discuss their personal lives, what led them to their professions, what challenges they face in their work, and their thoughts about what they see in the future for their careers, their fields, and the world.


Style

In ''Fast, Cheap & Out of Control'', Morris uses a camera technique he invented which allows the interview subject to maintain eye contact with the interviewer while also looking directly into the camera, seemingly making eye contact with the audience. The invention is called the
Interrotron Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara ...
, and Morris uses it in a number of his other films. According to Morris, this invention alters interviews in the sense that "no longer is it the interviewer, the camera, and the subject; with the Interrotron, the conversation is between the camera/interviewer and the subject." Morris uses the four main subjects to narrate the film, while displaying more artistic freedom through visual mechanisms. The cinematographer, Robert Richardson, uses many of the same camera techniques he used in
Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sca ...
's films ''
JFK John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
'' and ''
Natural Born Killers ''Natural Born Killers'' is a 1994 American crime film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore. The film tells the story of two victims of traumatic childhoo ...
''. In addition to 35 mm cameras, he also uses
Super 8 mm film Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format. The film is nominally 8 mm wide, the same as older formatted ...
. Some footage was even transferred to video and then filmed again being played "off a low-resolution television set." The film also uses footage from other sources, such as movie clips, documentary footage, and cartoons. Hoover's idol
Clyde Beatty Clyde Beatty (June 10, 1903 – July 19, 1965) was a famed animal trainer, zoo owner, and circus mogul. He joined Howe's Great London Circus in 1921 as a cage boy and spent the next four decades rising to fame as one of the most famous circ ...
appears via portions of a film (''
The Big Cage ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...
'', 1933) and
serial Serial may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media The presentation of works in sequential segments * Serial (literature), serialised literature in print * Serial (publishing), periodical publications and newspapers * Serial (radio and televisio ...
(''
Darkest Africa ''Darkest Africa'' (1936) is a Republic movie serial. This was the first serial produced by Republic Pictures and was a loose sequel to a Mascot Pictures serial called ''The Lost Jungle'', also starring Clyde Beatty. Mascot, and other companies ...
'', 1936) in which he starred, and there are clips of malicious robots from the serial ''
Zombies of the Stratosphere ''Zombies of the Stratosphere'' is a 1952 black-and-white Republic Studios serial directed by Fred C. Brannon, with a screenplay by Ronald Davidson, and special effects by Republic's Lydecker brothers. It was intended to be Republic's second seri ...
'' (1952). After using the first moments in the film to establish the characters one by one with film clips that correspond to each subject, Morris then begins to mix footage relating to one subject with the narration of another in order to establish themes shared by the different subjects. Morris said that "The multiple ilm and videoformats make you aware of imagery as imagery, but I can't imagine this film without the narration by the characters. The ideas come from the relation between what is being said and what is being seen. If there isn't a connection, it doesn't work -- and I can testify to this from empirical knowledge gathered in an editing room.'' Morris credited his editor,
Karen Schmeer Karen Schmeer (February 20, 1970 – January 29, 2010) was a film editor who frequently collaborated with filmmaker Errol Morris. Early life and education Schmeer was born in Portland, Oregon. She was the daughter of Michael Schmeer and Ele ...
, with "saving" the film. The day after she died, he wrote on Twitter: "An extraordinary editor makes possible something that would not have been possible without them. Karen Schmeer was an extraordinary editor."


Background

Morris' initial intention for the film was to create a profile-based film with no clear relation between its subjects. This was in contrast to his previous films, in which the interview subjects were related by events, like in ''
Gates of Heaven ''Gates of Heaven'' is a 1978 American documentary film produced, directed, and edited by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career. Production After a trip to Florida ...
'' and '' The Thin Blue Line'', or place of residency, like in ''
Vernon, Florida Vernon is a city in Washington County, Florida. The population was 687 at the 2010 census; according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2018 estimates, the city had a population of 690. Vernon is named for George Washington's Virginia home, Mount Ve ...
''. The title of the film is a play on the old engineer's adage that, out of "fast", "cheap", and "reliable", you can only produce an end consumer product that is two of those three (the classic example is a car). Brooks, the robot scientist in the film, published a paper in the ''
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society The ''Journal of the British Interplanetary Society'' (''JBIS'') is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1934. The journal covers research on astronautics and space science and technology, including spacecraft design, ...
'' in 1989 titled "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control: A Robot Invasion of the Solar System". In it, he speculated that it might be more effective to send one hundred one-kilogram robots into space instead of a single hundred-kilogram robot, replacing the need for reliability with chance and sheer numbers, as systems in nature have learned to do. The advantage would be that, if a single robot malfunctioned or got destroyed, there would still be plenty of other working robots to do the exploring. In a profile of Morris,
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
wrote that if he had to describe the film, he'd "say it's about people who are trying to control things--to take upon themselves the mantle of God." Morris agrees that "There is a Frankenstein element. They're all involved in some very odd inquiry about life...There's something mysterious in each of the stories, something melancholy as well as funny. And there's an edge of mortality. For the end of the movie I showed the gardener clipping the top of his camel, clipping in a heavenly light, and then walking away in the rain. You know that this garden is not going to last much longer than the gardener's lifetime." Morris dedicated the movie to his mother and stepfather, who had recently died. Another theme is communication: Morris quotes Mendez as saying that "he's seeking some kind of connection with `the other,' which he defines as that which exists completely independent of ourselves. And then he talks about looking into the eye of a naked mole rat and thinking, ''I know you are, you know I am''. It occurred to me that all of my movies are about language. About how language reveals secrets about people. It's a way into their heads."


Reception

The film received positive reviews from critics including
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
and
A. O. Scott Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic. He has been chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' since 2004, a title he shares with Manohla Dargis. Early life Scott was born on July 10, 1966 in ...
. On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, it holds a rating of 91% based on 33 reviews. Several critics called it one of the best films of 1997. Ebert wrote that "Errol Morris has long since moved out of the field of traditional documentary. Like his subjects, he is arranging the materials of life according to his own notions. They control shrubs, lions, robots and rats, and he controls them. ''Fast, Cheap & Out of Control'' doesn't fade from the mind the way so many assembly line thrillers do. Its images lodge in the memory. To paraphrase the old British beer ad, Errol Morris refreshes the parts the others do not reach."


Soundtrack

The film's musical score was composed Caleb Sampson and performed by the
Alloy Orchestra The Alloy Orchestra was a musical ensemble based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, that performed its own accompaniments to silent films of the classic movie era. Performing on an unusual collection of found objects (horseshoes, plumb ...
. It is characterized as circus-like, sometimes frenzied or haunting, and features percussion (particularly mallets and xylophones) to give it a metallic, technological or futuristic flavor. A theme from the score appeared on
Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of f ...
's ''Critic's Choice Best Movie Themes of the 90s'' compilation soundtrack. The film is available on VHS and
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
, while the soundtrack is available on CD.jazz cds, Accurate Records Caleb Sampson
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References


External links

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at
Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acq ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fast, Cheap and Out of Control 1997 films American documentary films Films directed by Errol Morris Films produced by Errol Morris Collage film Films about animals Circus films American robot films Films about insects 1990s English-language films 1990s American films