Rent Vernon, Florida (1981)

Eccentrics - Let's All Point at Them and Laugh - Vernon, Florida review by Strovey

Errol Morris went to Vernon, Florida over 40-years ago to reveal ‘Nub City’ so called because the residents apparently removed their limbs purposely to make insurance claims. Whether true or an exaggeration the residents did not take kindly to this intrusion and threatened his life. This culminated in a cinematographer nearly getting deliberately run over. Rather than scuttle off with his tail between his legs Morris stayed but pointed the camera at the town’s plentiful eccentrics and then did the perfect thing that interrogators often do, he said nothing. Faced with this people in general will fill that void with talking, and this they surely did.

Having no insight into how Morris made his film or how he framed it, there is a feeling he definitely sought out the most eccentric characters he could find. It is obvious the less odd characters he filmed got the least amount of time with the oddest getting the most screen time. In particular the obsessive, and when I say obsessive I mean obsessive, turkey hunter.

How much footage was left on the cutting room floor? Perhaps some that show these people in a better light? Documentaries are entertainment in general and the makers will slant them to make the story they want to tell so a lot of people will see it – this needs to be remembered in ninety-percent of documentaries you see.

There really is little else to discuss. The film is very short in length coming in at under an hour and it stops – when I say it stops it just stops, no credits, nothing, just a black screen. Morris really did seem to enjoy gravitating to the ‘gobble gobble’ turkey killer, the word killer is the correct word because this fellow doesn’t shoot turkeys or hunt them, he likes to say he kills them. I could not help feeling that the turkeys of Vernon were doing the human race a service somehow. If he did not have the obsession he could sate he may have been featured in different type of ‘true’ documentary. Regardless of my own prattle, Morris was clearly drawn to this man and after the initial understanding of how much he really loves turkey hunting that started to drag quickly.

Being the USA, Christian religion really plays a big part and several folk let us know that because they do not understand how things came to be, science, astronomy and so forth it must be God. More hilarious is the preacher who proves if you have that position of reverence and ‘God-given’ authority over a community you can without doubt talk utter nonsense in a sermon and everyone will sit patiently and listen to you. I would love to know what the residents thought of his nonsensical and incorrect assumption that people in biblical lands of the Middle East used the word ‘therefore’ and what therefore means. It was tedious and not without smug hubris on his part.

I am not sure if I was meant to laugh at these people or just somehow love them in a sanctimonious way. Florida, Vernon was entertaining enough but should I really be entertained by eccentrics who probably think the documentary maker is interested in what they are going to say without realising the wider world is in general laughing at them?

When I give it some thought I have to say as a documentary this does not treat its topic with that much respect.