February 17–24, 2000
movie shorts
Mr. Death: the Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
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With Mr. Death, Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line) takes his lyrical, confrontational art to new heights. After breaking the rules of documentary (or as he prefers to put it, non-fiction) filmmaking for over two decades, Morris has settled down enough to both provoke his audiences and take responsibility for their reactions. Considering the volatility of Mr. Death’s subject matter, Morris’ newfound social conscience comes at the ideal time. The film begins as a fascinating portrait of Leuchter, an engineer who specialized in designing death houses — electric chairs, gallows, you name it — and whose geeky charisma is equaled only by his baffling amorality. That latter characteristic comes to dominate Mr. Death once Morris begins to deal with Leuchter’s testimony in the trial of Holocaust revisionist Ernst Zündel. After travelling to Auschwitz and taking unscientific (and illegal) samples from crematoria, Leuchter ingenuously announces that the Nazis could not possibly have gassed prisoners there, and seems almost shocked by the controversy and ostracism his words provoke. While thoroughly discrediting Leuchter’s pseudo-science (via expert witnesses of his own), Morris focuses his attention of how a creature such as Leuchter comes to exist: a man who seems without malice, yet lends his support to one of the most vile groups on the planet. In doing so, Mr. Death probes the far deeper question of how such sects continue to exist, and how denial remains possible even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
