"Of Instincts & Consciousness"
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What You Need To Know:
Using many different film and video formats and intercutting stock footage with images of the men talking, this is an unusual and thought-provoking look at humanity. Although these men each have fascinating stories, the director seeks to find common ground between them all. The results are mixed. Without having a strong worldview, this movie has many opinions and observations. FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL is very artistic, intelligent and compassionate. It is a odd but refreshing work without objectionable content
Content:
(H, Ev, C, V) Mild humanist worldview with evolutionary elements such as stating that men & animals share similar behavior patterns and with some Christian elements; no foul language; some mild violence including animal attacks & some old-time movie footage of action-violence; no sex; and, no nudity but a few skimpy costumes.
More Detail:
Turning conventional documentary techniques upside down, Errol Morris who created the documentary about scientist Stephen Hawking entitled A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, now interviews four very different men who have careers involving animals. FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONROL gets its name from a proposed method of sending multiple robots to analyze the Martian surface as explained by MIT graduate and robot scientist, Rodney Brooks. Using many different film and video formats and intercutting various stock footage interspersed with images of the men talking, this is an unusual and thought-provoking look at humanity.
Dave Hoover is a lion tamer who idolizes the late Clyde Beatty and tells the audience how a lion thinks and how to outthink a lion to keep yourself from getting hurt. We learn about Clyde’s favorite cats, and we see a large amount of footage from old Clyde Beatty movies where he is wrestling a lion.
George Mendonca is a topiary gardener who has devoted his life to shaping bears, giraffes and more out of hedges and trees. We learn that hand-shearing is best for detail. We learn what it takes to bend the plants into shapes. We also learn what are the dangers of shaping animals out of plants and that topiary gardening is a dying art.
Ray Mendez, wearing a butterfly shaped bow-tie, talks about his fascination with hairless mole-rats who behave like insects. The rats live underground and have very powerful buck teeth. Like termites or bees, the rats practice communal living, willing to sacrifice their lives for the rest of the group.
Finally, the movie examines Rodney Brooks, a designer of complex, autonomous robots. Rodney envisions the future to be completely automated, where everything has a degree of intelligence, including doors. Mr. Brooks envisions a distant future where man may be designing himself out of existence, where machines can become so intelligent as to repair themselves and even reproduce themselves.
Although these men each have fascinating stories, worthy of their own documentary short, the director seeks to find common ground between them all. The results are mixed. All men are thoughtful and seek to understand more about humanity, but the film’s major fault is that the director forces connections when he overlaps one man’s explanations on top of images relating to another man’s story.
However, the movie achieves worthiness and acclaim with its adventurous photography. Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson utilizes black & white, color, 35 mm, 16 mm, Super-8, and video as well as stock video from movies and cartoons. Images of the men talking are shot using the Interrotron, a device which allows the interviewee to look at a teleprompter plate holding the image of the face of the interviewer. The teleprompter plate is placed directly in front of the camera lens creating the very effect as if the interviewee were looking at the eyes of a person, instead of a camera lens. This effect allows the subjects to relate to the audience much more naturally.
Without having a strong worldview, this movie does have many opinions and observations from its subjects. They all profess to learn and celebrate humanity through their work, almost anthropomorphizing their animals. Perhaps, the filmmaker is saying that man is not much different than an animal. Yet, the overarching impression is not focused on what the men are saying, but on who they are. All are very interested in their work, and all have a zest for life. Robert Brooks gives the most ironic observation by simultaneously saying that creatures and man evolved, but conversely states that consciousness is a gift from God.
FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL is very artistic, very esoteric yet intelligent and very compassionate towards its subjects. For all scientists, animal lovers and even humanitarians, it is a odd but refreshing work.
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