Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

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Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
Fast-cheap-and-out-of-control.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byErrol Morris
Produced byErrol Morris
Starring
CinematographyRobert Richardson
Edited byShondra Merrill
Karen Schmeer
Music byCaleb Sampson
Distributed bySony Pictures Classics
Release dates
Running time
82 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$878,960 (USA)

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control is a 1997 documentary film by filmmaker Errol Morris.[1]

Summary[]

The film profiles four subjects with extraordinary careers: Dave Hoover, a wild-animal tamer; George Mendonça, a topiary gardener at Green Animals Topiary Garden in Portsmouth, Rhode Island; Ray Mendez, an expert on naked mole-rats; and Rodney Brooks, an MIT scientist who works in robotics. In the interviews with the men, which act as the guiding narration for the film, they discuss their personal lives, what led them to their professions, what challenges they face in their work, and their thoughts about what they see in the future for their careers, their fields, and the world.

Style[]

In Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, Morris uses a camera technique he invented which allows the interview subject to maintain eye contact with the interviewer while also looking directly into the camera, seemingly making eye contact with the audience. The invention is called the Interrotron, and Morris uses it in a number of his other films. According to Morris, this invention alters interviews in the sense that "no longer is it the interviewer, the camera, and the subject; with the Interrotron, the conversation is between the camera/interviewer and the subject."[2]

Morris uses the four main subjects to narrate the film, while displaying more artistic freedom through visual mechanisms. The cinematographer, Robert Richardson, uses many of the same camera techniques he used in his other films, JFK and Natural Born Killers. In addition to 35 mm cameras, he also uses Super 8 mm film. Some footage was even transferred to video and then filmed again being played "off a low-resolution television set."[3]

The film also uses footage from other sources, such as movie clips, documentary footage, and cartoons.[4] Hoover's idol Clyde Beatty appears via portions of a film (The Big Cage (1933)) and serial (Darkest Africa (1936)) in which he starred, and there are clips of malicious robots from the serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952).

After using the first moments in the film to establish the characters one by one with film clips that correspond to each subject, Morris then begins to mix footage relating to one subject with the narration of another in order to establish themes shared by the different subjects.

Background[]

Morris' initial intention for the film was to create a profile-based film with no clear relation between its subjects. This was in contrast to his previous films, in which the interview subjects were related by events, like in Gates of Heaven and The Thin Blue Line,[5] or place of residency, like in Vernon, Florida.[6]

The title of the film is a play on the old engineer's adage that, out of "fast", "cheap", and "reliable", you can only produce an end consumer product that is two of those three (the classic example is a car). Brooks, the robot scientist in the film, published a paper in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society in 1989 titled "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control: A Robot Invasion of the Solar System".[7] In it, he speculated that it might be more effective to send one hundred one-kilogram robots into space instead of a single hundred-kilogram robot, replacing the need for reliability with chance and sheer numbers, as systems in nature have learned to do. The advantage would be that, if a single robot malfunctioned or got destroyed, there would still be plenty of other working robots to do the exploring.

Reception[]

The film received positive reviews from critics including Roger Ebert[8] and A.O. Scott.[9] On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a rating of 91% based on 33 reviews.[10]

Soundtrack[]

The film's musical score was composed Caleb Sampson and performed by the Alloy Orchestra. It is characterized as circus-like, sometimes frenzied or haunting, and features percussion (particularly mallets and xylophones) to give it a metallic, technological or futuristic flavor. A theme from the score appeared on Leonard Maltin's Critic's Choice Best Movie Themes of the 90s compilation soundtrack.[11]

The film is available on VHS and DVD,[12] while the soundtrack is available on CD.[13]

References[]

  1. ^ Roger Ebert
  2. ^ Silverman, Jason. "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control Interview With Filmmaker Errol Morris". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 1 May 2020.
  3. ^ Resha, David (2015). The Cinema of Errol Morris. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-8195-7534-0.
  4. ^ Errol Morris: Film
  5. ^ The New Cult Canon: Fast, Cheap and Out of Control|AV Club
  6. ^ Resha, David (2015). The Cinema of Errol Morris. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. pp. 131–153. ISBN 978-0-8195-7534-0.
  7. ^ "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control: A Robot Invasion of the Solar System"
  8. ^ Roger Ebert
  9. ^ 'Fast, Cheap and Out of Control' | Critics' Picks | The New York Times via official YouTube channel
  10. ^ Rotten Tomatoes
  11. ^ Critic's Choice - Leonard Maltin's Best Movie Themes of the 90s Soundtrack (1993-1999) - soundtrack.net
  12. ^ Amazon.com
  13. ^ jazz cds, Accurate Records Caleb Sampson

External links[]

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