a look at ‘Vernon Florida’

Vernon Florida, a look into the strangest documentary ive ever seen 

Verdon Florida is a documentary made by Errol Morris in 1981, its weird in that there is no story, plot, or central ‘main character’ the entire documentary is a profile of a small remote town in Florida where not very much is happening, 

and that's where the beauty of the documentary shines through, it is not about grandiose story's or great triumphs, 

its about the simple but meaning full day to day lives of these very eccentric residents of this weird little town. 

There is no fancy camera movement or even a voice over, Errol Morris just sit you across from the weirdest guy you've ever seen and makes you listen to his story's, 

it sounds dull i know but there's something about it that hypnotises you and pulls you in. 

Im sorry for sounding pretentious but i fell that this documentary is about life and the pursuit of living it. 

 This documentary can make you cry, or it can make you bust a gut laughing, if you let it. It's filled with the passion, pride and sorrow that you can't write, you can only experience, and Errol Morris in this documentary captured it beautifully 

THE MAKING OF  

What Errol marris set out to make and what he made are two very different things. 

Originally, he had read an article about a ‘nub city’ a place in Florida where people where chopping of their own arms and legs to get insurance money.  

After the success of his first film ‘gates of heaven’ he was about to get the budget and the crew to film ‘nub city’. It's at this point that stories differ,  

one of the story's is that upon arriving in Vernon he discovered that the article was sensationalised and that actually nobody in Vernon was cutting off limbs for money.  

The other story was that once he showed up in town and started asking to many questions, he started receiving death threats that got to the point where someone tried to hit his cinematographer with a truck.  

No matter how it came to be it ended up that Errol marris had a crew and budget in Vernon and nothing to film, so he made a very brave choice to just film town,  

bill Hader spoke about the prospective Errol Marris must have had while filming when he said “ok you guys are all here, i have the money, where gonna film this guy talk about shooing turkeys for about 2 weeks and were gonna shot it in a way that nobody's every shot a documentary and it probably won't work” 

Conclusion  

Vernon Florida more than anything else is an extremely charming documentary, you can't help but be pulled in by this weird and wonderful little town filled with strange characters like a preacher who talked about the meaning of the word “therefore” for 6 minutes or the man who talks about hunting turkey like he's telling war story's, or even the old men who sit outside the shop and bicker about their friends suicide. It's a must watch in my eyes, and ive yet to see anything like it.