Errol Morris: David Lean Lecture 2011

Errol Morris, director of Tabloid and The Thin Blue Line has reflected on documentary filmmaking and explored the power of  investigative technique in his 2011 David Lean Lecture.

In the year in which the Academy announced the introduction of a new Documentary category at the 2012 Film Awards, Morris was a natural fit for its annual film lecture which took place on 6 November 2011.

As a documentary filmmaker Morris has won acclaim for combining journalism with dramatic recreation, confessional interview and a deft grasp of cinematic style. His 1988 film The Thin Blue Line, which investigated the dubious death sentence given to its subject Randall Adams, is credited as the first film that solved a murder case.

During the  lecture the self-described ‘contrarian’ challenged the idea of fly-on-the-wall filmmaking, and used clips of his own films to illustrate his investigative technique.

Speaking candidly he said: “Just because you do things in a certain way doesn’t mean that they are more truthful as a result.  You search for truth by investigating endlessly… and if you’re lucky, you find something approximating it.”

Delving into the topic further in  post-lecture Q&A hosted by UK documentarian Adam Curtis (All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace) he reflected that “it’s hard to know, but the world seems crazier to me now.”

Morris said: “My premise is I don’t even know the answer or the question. I’m there on a kind of fact-finding mission, to learn something.”

Reflecting Morris’ impact on the industry Film Committee Chairman, Nik Powell described him as a “great storyteller”.

He said “Errol is a director not bound by easy designations; he uses many of the tools in the fiction filmmaker’s stylistic repertoire to tell great stories. And like all great storytellers, he is a profoundly keen observer of human behaviours.”