Errol Morris is one of the greatest documentary filmmakers in the world today. (At least that’s my opinion). His films, such as The Fog of War or Fast, Cheap & Out of Control are just spectacular. His classic, of course is, The Thin Blue Line.
For it’s 100th anniversary, IBM commissioned Morris to make a 30 minute documentary about the impact that IBMÂ has had on the world.
That’s a big topic.
I have posted it above.
Watching it we can learn a few things.
First, the music.
Morris commissioned Philip Glass (Einstein on the Beach among others) to do the music.
Staring at computers can, for the most part, prove pretty boring stuff. Glass’ music drives the film along, yet it also reflects the minute and repetitive nature of data processing. In this case the music is, I think, absolutely intrinsic to the film.
Second, this is really not a half-hour documentary. People, for better or worse, and mostly for worse, don’t have the attention span to watch a half hour documentary any more. So Morris breaks it up into little 3 minute segments. It might have been better if he had actually posted them as separate films, but I bet IBM would not have gone for that one.
Note that in each of the little mini-docs there is a complete arc of story, set up at the beginning – a task IBM has to fulfull. This is an old storytelling technique, as old as Perseus and the Medusa. Can he do it? Can IBM do it?
Note also that, as we always say, the camera does not move. And Morris is great at interweaving archival stills and old film clips into the doc.
I am sure that IBM paid Morris a ton for this film, but I think they got their money’s worth. It’s not really a ‘documentary’, per se, as the segment on The IBM Personal Computer curiously fails to mention anything about Apple, who, I am pretty sure (really?) as there first.
I was also astonished to learn that Errol Morris came from my home town.
