First Person Analysis

First Person (2000-01)

Directed and Produced by: Errol Morris

This is an interview series of people who are from unconventional professions and very different walks of life, some even shocking. Most of them have professions related to death in some way, one cleans up blood in a crime scene and helps the family of victims with the logistics of it, another is into cryonics (look it up if you don't know what it is, I was shocked too), another case where a talking parrot was the only witness in a crime scene, another woman who is into relationships with serial killers, another person who is the smartest person in the world but is just a professional bouncer. It is something to know about psychopaths, serial killers to understand what humans can be capable of but this series of guests are arguably, good people and all of them are on the legal side of the law - it's just that the things that they do are so weird that it's almost difficult to not judge them but by getting them to talk for awhile - he makes us empathise with them and this show just challenges our ability to be open minded.

This series was shot unconventionally - Errol Morris built 'The Interrotron' - a device similar to a teleprompter - where Errol and his subject each sit facing a camera and their faces are projected to the other person on a two-way mirror in front of the lens of the camera. For us, it feels like the subject is talking to the audience by looking into the camera, and for the subject, it feels like they are talking to the person by looking at their image - it's a win-win. They use extreme close up shots of the subject sometimes, to create an unsettling feeling. I'm yet to watch his documentary The Thin Blue Line, where after the film about the inconsistencies in a murder case - the case is reconsidered and the convict is proven innocent and set free.