Vernon, Florida

Vernon, Florida may have been the most intriguing film we have watched up to this point in the semester. In many ways, it is also my favorite of the films we have seen. Not long, but just long enough to keep my interest while at times stretching my patience, I found the film particularly enjoyable. Morris has a way of finding characters that are simply good on film. Whether it is their strange way of thinking, habits, or philosophy, when he puts someone in front of the camera interesting things seem to emerge.

The sequences featuring the old man with the a metal box full of various live animals (well a tortoise and a possum to be sure anyway) to me may have been the most interesting moments of cinema verite that I have ever witnessed. Whether the shots were set up (particularly the second with the possum) is impossible to know, but one simply sits amazed at what they are seeing taking place onscreen. Tears rolled down my cheeks in laughter during the in-class screening. Yes, it was funny - but it was so incredibly odd that I simply didn’t know how to react and exploded into fits of laughter.

That Morris captures these things says something about his knack for finding stories where others may simply drive on through. Anyone can take a camera to a small town and start interviewing people. In most cases I’d even venture to guess that people would have some strange and intriguing stories. But a jar full of sand that grows?? A man who lives in a pink trailer and is so obsessed with turkey hunting that he seems in need of some sort of professional rehabilitation? There is something special about who Morris finds and what he chooses to feature in his films.

The lack of narration, and an overall feeling of disjointedness seems to only add to the film as a whole. Vernon, itself seems to be represented in the way way in which Morris captures his subject. Shots are long, things seem lonely and quiet. Strange choices in editing and shot length (i.e. the extremely long opening short of a truck driving down the road) allude to the strangeness Morris seems to identify in the town’s more interesting characters. Some subjects are featured at great length (the turkey hunter), while others are given minimal amounts of screen time (the growing sand lady).

In thinking back on the film I wonder why Morris chooses to feature the turkey hunter so prominently. Is he trying to convey a message about obsession? About hunting? Or simply about the strangeness of individual personalities? Perhaps Morris chooses his characters and situations knowing that multiple themes will emerge in his audiences’ minds. Rather than define what we are supposed to think about these strange characters, Morris lets us decide by simply observing. It’s something we do every day, observe and judge people. Yet by placing it in the context of a documentary film, Morris forces the audience to think about why they are thinking what they are thinking without quickly moving on. We are presented with a turkey hunter simply walking along clucking for large periods of time. Perhaps that is the time the filmmaker is affording us to figure out what we make of all this. What does it mean? Ultimately, some audience members will surely get bored and start thinking about things that are more pressing personally. But there may be those who do start to take a deeper look. Those who want to learn more about humanity and how people work. I think it’s these folks attention that Morris is truly after in making a film like Vernon, Florida.