Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999)

Calificación de los usuarios:

7.4/10   

Director:

Errol Morris

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

14 enero 2000 (USA)

Género:

Documental | Biografía

Plot:

A cinematic portrait of the life and career of the infamous American execution device designer and holocaust denier.

Plot Keywords:

Execution | Auschwitz | Gas Chamber | Holocaust Denier | Revisionist

Premios:

1 win & 3 nominations

Comentarios de los usuarios:

An interesting film that starts out a typical Morris character piece and turns into a review of Leuchter's report on the Holocaust

Reparto

Fred A. Leuchter Jr.	...	Himself (as Fred Leuchter)
Robert Jan Van Pelt	...	Himself
David Irving	...	Himself
Caroline Leuchter	...	Herself (voice)
James Roth	...	Himself (analytical chemist)
Shelly Shapiro	...	Herself
Suzanne Tabasky	...	Herself
Ernst Zündel	...	Himself
David Collins	...	Re-enactment cast
Daniel Polsby	...	Re-enactment cast
Jeff Brown	...	Re-enactment cast
Robert Duerr	...	Re-enactment cast

También conocida como:

Mr. Death (USA) (short title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements.

Duración:

91 min

País:

UK | USA

Idioma:

Inglés

Color:

Color

Relación de Aspecto:

1.85 : 1

Sonido:

Dolby Digital

Clasificación:

Australia:M | France:U | USA:PG-13

Locaciones de Filmación:

Auschwitz, Poland

Compañía:

Channel Four Films

Trivialidades:

All of the states which bought one of Leuchter's lethal injection machines have subsequently stopped using them because they were too difficult to operate and maintain.

Citas:

Fred A. Leuchter Jr.: The human body is not easy to destroy and it's not east to take a life humanely and painlessly without doing a great deal of damage to the individual's body.

Conexiones de Película:

Apariciones Triumph des Willens (1935)

An interesting film that starts out a typical Morris character piece and turns into a review of Leuchter's report on the Holocaust

Fred Leuchter Jr is an engineer who has become something of a specialist in the design and manufacture of electric chairs and other methods of capital punishment. In this film we hear him discuss his work and join him on his visit to Auschwitz where he maintains that the mass extermination of people in world war II could not have been physically possible.

As with many other Errol Morris, this is a fascinating study of an interesting character, although not one I would particularly want to meet or have any common ground with. When it is allowing him to talk about his trade the film is interesting mainly because Leuchter's opinion of his work and, more importantly, himself is engaging to listen to. His attitude towards his work marks him out as somewhat of an eccentric but yet he sees himself as an expert in his craft – which it is also strangely clear that he is not. However the film loses this "appeal" somewhat in the second half where it becomes more about Leuchter's report on the Holocaust more than it does about the man himself. In a way it does feel like Morris has lost the essence of his approach by making sure that Leuchter's words are not allowed to just stand unquestioned.

Of course nobody could fault this approach because it was important not to just give this man a stage to speak unchallenged but it does rather change the film. Of course this is not to say that it isn't interesting because it still is. Pardon the pun but Morris does give Leuchter enough rope to hang himself and produces some telling moments such as him proclaiming himself the only expert in the world. The various spokespeople for the Jewish community don't really counter Leuchter and do themselves an injustice by being quite emotional in the face of his arguments. Fortunately there is enough actual factual response to him to make up for this.

Overall then a quite fascinating film but not quite what I expected from Morris. As it gets deeper into Leuchter's report on the Holocaust it does rather lose touch with the man but is still interesting and the approach was a necessary evil given the subject matter.