Gates of Heaven
by Errol Morris
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ed Quye, Florence Rasmussen, Floyd McClure, Mike Koewler, Scottie HarbertsDirector: Errol Morris
Brand: MORRIS,ERROL
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 85 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-07-26
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Gates of Heaven
Movie Review: Success and death
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is technically about two pet cemeteries in California, one of which fails and the other of which succeeds. But the real subject is the American attitude toward success and death. Success is the great American obsession - how to get it, how to look like you have it, how to show it off. And death is the great American taboo. Success for the business backers of the first cemetery meant burying several animals per grave and other nasty practices. For the second cemetery, it means, as the father of the bunch says, using "sound business practices." The cemetery is his dream, and he can talk of nothing else. His eldest son's dream of success is very different - he wants to be a singer-songwriter and have his songs be listened to by millions of people, but he's pretty much given it up. The older son, Phillip, is the one most obviously obsessed with success. He seems himself as a motivational speaker, and he constantly bloviates about how the principles of success can be applied to his tasks, including picking up the dead animals from the vets' offices and burying them. Everyone speaks in an amazingly American idiom. It is so true to life. I've never heard a scripted movie that presented even a fraction of the number of American voices as this documentary.
The other subject of course is death. Americans don't like to talk about death and like to hide it. The rendering plant owner is almost like a stand up comedian in that he talks about rendering zoo animals like it's a joke - touching the taboo and making people laugh is key for stand up. But it isn't funny, although he thinks it is. We see other people, sometimes pet owners, trying to come to terms with death, but not wanting to talk about it. They give advice. They show pictures. They have their dogs sing with them. The younger son, the singer-songwriter, is practical - he notes that you've got to dig the right sized hole - not too big but not so small you can't fit it in. The father has his own sort of religion that says that pets will be waiting for their owners in heaven. Here, he's connected the two poles of the movie - success and death, as such a belief not only would comfort bereaved pet owners, but make them more willing to spend money at his pet cemetery. Everyone else in the movie seems to be walking lonely towards that good night.
Summary of Gates of Heaven
From Academy AwardŽ-winning* director Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line) comes this acclaimed film about success and failure in the grave business of animal interment. "Memorable, moving and poignant" (Channel 4 Film), Gates of Heaven is "so rich and thought-provoking it stays in your mind for tantalizing days" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). When financial hardship forces California's Foothill Pet Cemetery to close its pearly gates, its dearly departedloved ones are relocated to the nearby Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park. During this tense transition, filmmaker Morris meets a collection of eccentric cemetery operators and anguished animal-lovers and elicits a meditation on love and loneliness that's "strange, chilling [and] appallingly funny" (Newsweek). *2003: Documentary Feature, Fog of War (with Michael Williams)Similar DVD Movies
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