Truthahnfieber

well near it.....I remember seeing errol morris one autumn afternoon as he stood in the street with tripod and camera back in 1981....I had just gotten off from work at the elementary school (where I still teach)....its hard to remember how different things were then...because the physical side of vernon is still the same....although this is going to change soon....the widening of the main street is going to literally wipe out the town as we know it.

the jury is still out on the purpose of morris' film....most of the town folk look at it today as a mockery....however some who were in it thought differently then (movie stars)....I watched it recently (again) and took it at face value...it was funny....however knowing vernon like I do...I must say that in my days at vernon high school...I remember variety in the culture....all were not rednecks or eccentrics...

morris just let the cameras roll....if there were any genius in the filmaking....it was in the editing...as these characters were patched together to create this look at a seedy, unique town.

to me the "condescending" (as some of the critics have declared) part is summed up in the music (if you can call it music) at the very beginning...this sets the tone for the entire picture....on the other hand...the genuine honesty and realism in the turkey hunter's interview is just that...the reason I know that.... he is my cousin...I have known him all of my life...that attention to details is the way he tells stories...I have heard countless ones through the years.

Wow, I viewed this film for the first time last night and I felt like I was sitting in my favorite local bar. Watching it, I could almost smell the mosquito spray that was shown in the opening scene and taste that invasive red dirt. I think I even saw ol' Uncle Pete somewhere in the background.

This documentary of a Smalltown, USA in rural Florida is a one-of-a-kind true comedy. Morris' choosing of the particular characters recorded and the events chronicled are genius. A quirky preacher who shares with us and his congregation his logic on semantics; a hunter who "specializes" in turkey gobblers; and an elderly man who likes to catch and keep wild critters all add to the deliciously funny charm of this documentary of rural life. His style of letting the characters speak for themselves is truly a work of art in this film. Watching "Vernon, Florida" is the equivalent of reading the "Foxfire" journals with a similar dose of the arcane knowledge that only rural, American, small-town residents possess. Definitely worth watching more than once.

I am grateful to Werner Herzog for convincing Errol Morris to become a filmmaker. "Vernon, Florida" is an intriguing look at the inhabitants of a small town with a beautiful setting in the southern United States. Like most of his films, if not all, Morris remains completely aloof, and instead allows his subjects to speak for themselves. One can easily mock the old, toothless men and the man who just loves "gobblers" (turkeys) but that would be too easy. There is something poignant about the way the people of this small town attempt to express their feelings, as if in many cases, they do not have the vocabulary to articulate their ideas. However, underlying their simple way of life is something that touches humanity. They love their lives and live them day to day without a care in the world. A friend of mine said that these guys are actually a lot smarter than we think because they know something better than probably anyone else around, even if it is cultivating worms. I think perhaps they know a lot more than we think about what it is to be human; they are earnest and humble. I watched this film three times and after each viewing I came to have a deeper appreciation for every one of them. Errol Morris is perhaps the best documentary filmmaker around today and this film was a little treat. A must see for all.

I'm from Marianna, Florida, which is about 20 minutes from Vernon. Take that for what it's worth, but this film reminds me of both why I left and why I sometimes long to return.

Errol Morris finds some of the most beautiful freaks ever committed to film. Any fan of the documentary film medium is doing themselves a disservice by not viewing this film a number of times.

I regard "Vernon, Florida" as up there with what is in my opinion Errol's best work -- "Gates of Heaven", "The Thin Blue Line," and "A Brief History of Time."

"'I like the idea of making films about ostensibly nothing,' Morris told The New Yorker's Mark Singer. 'That's what all my movies are about. That and the idea that we're in a position of certainty, truth, infallible knowledge, when actually we're just a bunch of apes running around.'"

That's what I enjoy about Errol's films -- grabbing hold of just about any bit of chaos in the universe, and being able to find and appreciating the beauty and wonder that it holds.