When I learned that this weeks class was going to be on documentary I was over the moon. ‘Yes!’ I thought to myself, ‘Finally we get to talk about some god damn Louis Theroux!’. I was excited, I mean, Louis pretty much wins the award for my favourite person, and so disappointed to find that he was only mentioned in passing under the subheading of ‘Interactive Documentary’. However, as this is my favourite format of documentary, I quickly recovered from my Theroux-induced heartbreak once we were introduced to the work of Errol Morris.

I was surprised to find that I was unfamiliar with him, but I was pretty amazed by his work with ‘The Killer Inside Me’. That was my sort of documentary. I mean, it had everything: murder, a crazy person, a condescending documentarian, a subject that didn’t quite realize how condescending said documentarian was being. It was great. So great I actually went home and watched it again, and then once more with mum, whom I usually watch docos with (In case you were wondering, she thought it was great too). Our serial killer groupie Sondra London didn’t necessarily need all that much help in portraying her mental instability, but Morris assisted her in the most brilliant and subtle ways. The constantly shifting lighting cast shadows over her already terrifying face, giving off the impression of her being some sort of monster, or creature from the darkness. The constant cutting to black made the narrative, her narrative, seem disjointed, drawing the viewer out of the tale and causing them to go over the information that had just received. The closer the camera zoomed into her face, the more intense things became, and with all these elements combined ‘The Killer Inside Me’ is rendered a rather chilling experience.




Still would have liked to have watched Louis’ porn episode though.

Or his Westboro Baptist Church exposé.

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