Planet Nelson

Errol Morris is a documentary filmmaker. His films include The Thin Blue Line, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control and Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara. Last week he put up a web site called People in the Middle and features American voters who have decided to vote for Barak Obama in spite of his not being in their political party.

Morris explains in a piece he wrote for The New York Times:

I haven’t selected these people through some kind of statistical sampling. These people are self-selected. They wrote in and said that they were registered Republicans, Independents or switch-voters who were planning to vote for Obama. People in the middle. And I was interested in talking to them on film about why they were making the switch from voting for a Republican to voting for a Democrat. Was it linked with policy? With the personality of the candidate?

If you’ve seen any of Morris’ films you will recognize his distinctive visual style; spare with a focus on the speaker. But more to the point, you get a real feel for the significance of what these people are doing and how different this election is compared to others in our recent past.

This time — as opposed to 2004 — the content of the interviews has been qualitatively different. The people I interviewed have embraced Obama. They are voting for a candidate, not against a candidate. Lissa Lucas, for example, tells the story of voting for someone for the first time in her life. There is a feeling of hopefulness. There is this optimism, even though the situation in the country is arguably much worse than four years ago. A failing economy. The continuing war in Iraq. A crumbling infrastructure. But there is the core belief that if we pull together, we can save the country.

I am moved and fascinated by Morris’ interviews of these people who fundamentally have changed their view of the world. Each of the speakers are sincere and compelling in their own way. A very interesting site and worth a look.

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Barak Obama, Errol Morris