Review of Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997) by Edith N — 25 Aug 2010

Finding the Normal in the Bizarre.

We've met Errol Morris before, you know. There is of course the short film "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe," also featuring a very smug Morris. It was about the completion, and consequences of the completion, of another Morris documentary, his first, [i]Gates of Heaven[/i]. Herzog seems to have believed that any first-time filmmaker who could get funding for a full-length documentary about pet cemeteries was obviously doing something impressive, and he didn't believe it was going to happen. Herzog being a man of his word, once it did happen, he did actually eat his shoe. I don't know Morris even to the extent that I know the thought processes of a lot of other people involved in filmmaking, but I feel quite sure he tried to let Herzog off the hook. I like picturing the conversation. "No, really, Werner. It's an expression.".

This is a similarly odd film. This time, Morris weaves together the stories of four men of varied and unusual interests. There is Dave Hoover, a lion and tiger tamer for the circus who now hates living in the shadow of the man who inspired him to do the job in the first place. There is George Mendonça, a topiary artist who still does things the old fashioned way, rather looking down his nose at those slovenly types who use electric clippers. There is Raymond A. Mendez, who became an expert on the naked mole rat almost as soon as he knew there were naked mole rats to be experts about. There is Rodney Brooks, a robotics expert who is also the only one of the four with his own Wikipedia page. Each has his own fascination, and the implication of the film rather seems to be that, yeah, it's weird to be all about the topiary. However, everyone has something they're weird about, and after all, those robots may come in handy someday.

It is at this juncture that I must shake my head at the fine people at the Disney Channel. I suspect that people forget that Disney cutes up everything, and they aren't prepared for the look of a real naked mole rat. They're ugly buggers. To the extent, I think, that Rufus looks actually less like a real naked mole rat than a lot of other cartoon animals look like the animals they're supposed to be. Okay, the average person wouldn't know naked mole rats even existed were it not for [i]Kim Possible[/i], whereas the average person has seen a rabbit or a mouse, in pictures if nothing else. It turns out that naked mole rats are ugly little buggers which live in far eastern Africa. They are, as mentioned, hairless, and they don't regulate their body heat the way other mammals do. Apparently, they're even essentially hive creatures, insectoid in their social patterns.

Actually, now I think about it, all four men have jobs with a strong public perception involved which their actual work may not match. George Mendonça doesn't do the blocky kind of topiary I imagine from my childhood spent visiting, well, Disneyland. He means it as an art, one which requires constant upkeep. It is, after all, a living art. He's not working for minimum wage, swiping a hedge clipper over the plants before going off to rake up in Storybook Land. Morris even shows clips of old public images of robots before showing us what Brooks actually does. At that, his robots still look like they should have some sort of cover over their naked skeletons. And, yeah, what Dave Hoover does is pretty much exactly what we picture him doing, only there is the curious contradiction that he thinks you're doing it wrong if you're not afraid.

The title comes from the old engineering adage that you can have your choice of two from the list of fast, cheap, and reliable. Brooks actually believes his fast, cheap robots are arguably better than more expensive but more reliable ones. You send enough of them out, and you're not worried about a few getting lost or broken. You can send them into more dangerous places. Personally, I'm a big fan of sending the expensive but detailed now and again. I'd like to see people walking on the Moon again, and as soon as possible. However, either way, there's a place for each. This may well be the theme of this movie. There's a niche for all of them. Apparently, the naked mole rat is as far from endangered as it gets. They're everywhere, because they do what they do very well, filling a slot in the ecology better than anyone else. You can't argue with that.