Gates of Heaven (1978)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Documentary	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1978
Running Time	82:13
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Errol Morris
Studio Distributor	Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Dual-Secure Clip
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.66:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Errol Morris is something of an enigma. He has been making films for over 20 years and yet his output has been slow and invariably quirky and strange. He works exclusively (apart from one miss-step) in the field of documentaries.

    Recently he prepared the interview montage of nominees that opened the Oscars telecast.

    Australian DVD fans would probably know him best through the Academy Award winning Fog of War. In fact, until recently that was the only Morris DVD available in Region 4.

    In 1978 Morris was a failed science student with a serious interest in film. He was kicking around with German auteur Werner Herzog, who challenged him to make a film. In fact he said, rumour has it, that if Morris could get a film made, Herzog would eat his shoe. Check out the film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe for the results!

    After seeing a news headline describing the mass transfer of dead pets from a failed pet cemetery, Morris travelled to the Napa Valley in California to interview people for the film that would become Gates of Heaven. Released in 1981, Gates of Heaven established Morris as a film maker with a unique vision and remains one of critic Roger Ebert's favourite films.

    The films of Errol Morris are different from the majority of documentary filmmakers for several reasons. Morris has no voice overs and his presence is as a mere observer. He allows his subjects to tell their tales. He carefully lets these stories, inconsequential as they seem, bubble and rise to capture something quite deep and elusive. What may at first seem to be lazy plotting is in fact a clever progression of idea through osmosis.

    In Gates of Heaven Morris begins with interviews of several disparate characters. We meet various partners behind a pet cemetery business and also the boss of a local rendering factory. He tells us, with a nod and a wink, that he has an arrangement with the local zoo by which the recently departed wild animals are sent to him for "recycling" - elephants, bears and even a giraffe!

    After hearing their stories for a third of the movie Morris does an amazing shift, letting it seep out that the cemetery had to close though poor financial management and the partners are no longer on speaking terms. What is worse, the animals need relocating! We are then taken to a new cemetery to interview the management team and the bereaved animal owners.

    Morris lets these sometimes strange people talk about life in general and the film develops as an examination of the nature of loss and longing and the heart of the American Dream. The family managing the Bubbling Springs Pet Cemetery could have come straight out of Death of a Salesman as the sons relate their dreams and expectations. One son is a college slacker with few aspirations and the other, hilariously, is all business-speak as he explains why he left the high-flying world of insurance selling to work his way up through the pet cemetery business.

    Gates of Heaven introduces the Morris style which is to let the interviewees express themselves frankly and although the results are often funny Morris does not ridicule his subjects. They are what they are - all part of life's rich tapestry.

Video

    Gates of Heaven is presented in a 1.66:1 letterboxed transfer consistent with its original aspect ratio. It is not 16x9 enhanced.

    This documentary was shot on film approximately 30 years ago. The image quality for the DVD transfer is just as you might expect. The picture tends to be grainy and washed out. The colours are muted and a little wayward at times. The greens are overbright.

    There are artefacts by the boxful in the original source prints, although the DVD transfer itself is as clean as could be expected.

    Though the film is on a single sided DVD there are no problems with compression.

    While I would have liked some real effort to have been made to improve the picture quality of this film the phrase "beggars can't be choosers" comes to mind. Once your eyes adjust to the quality it scarcely becomes an issue although it must be said that some of the 1970's fashions on show are infinitely more frightening!

    The reality is that this film is likely to have been lost if not given this barely adequate transfer.

    The film does not have any subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Gates of Heaven is presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound (224Kb/s). Since the films are really nothing more than interviews, the lack of surround support does not present any real problems. The sound was all live miked and occasionally passing vehicles or other noises interfere. The sound quality has been lost to a certain extent over time and the dialogue is occasionally thin and reedy. You have to listen hard at times to pick up all the nuance but the journey is worth it.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras.

    In Region 1 this film has also been released as a box set. The version of this film appears identical.

    Don't let the age and average picture quality of this film put you off. It is a curious and affecting documentary that introduced the weird world of Errol Morris to the public.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall