3. Vernon, Florida
In 2003, Errol Morris won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for his The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. Morris is considered by many to be the greatest living documentary filmmaker, yet many are unfamiliar with his strange and fascinating portrayal of a small Florida community in Vernon, Florida (1981). Morris' work on the film began as a research trip investigating loss-of-limb insurance claims in the Florida panhandle. It turns out that this region of the U.S. had some of the highest claim rates for this type of accident in the 1950s and 1960s. This backstory is probably enough to see that there are some subcultural tendencies to be had in Morris' film. Because of death threats that he received, Morris had to cut out any mention of the "nub city" aspects from Vernon, Florida (you can read a
great piece from the Tampa Bay Times about the story). What we get is equally curious, at times disturbing, and all the while fascinatingan obsessive turkey hunter, a preacher who speaks incessantly about the word "therefore" in his sermon, a couple who says that they can grow sand in a jar, and an extremely bored local police officer. The result is an interesting rumination on the personalities of small-town people who represent a much different side of American life.
Scott A. Lukas
Contributor
Scott A. Lukas has taught anthropology and sociology Lake Tahoe Community College for sixteen years and in 2013 was Visiting Professor of American Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. He has been recognized with the McGraw-Hill Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology by the American Anthropological Association (2005), the California Hayward Award for Excellence in Education (2003), and a Sierra Arts Foundation Artist Grant Program Award in Literary–Professional (2009). In 2006, he was a nominee to the California Community College Board of Governors. He is the author/editor of The Immersive Worlds Handbook (2012), Theme Park (2008), The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nature, and Self (2007), Fear, Cultural Anxiety, and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Films Remade, (co-edited with John Marmysz, 2009), Recent Developments in Criminological Theory (co-edited with Stuart Henry, 2009), and Strategies in Teaching Anthropology (2010). His book Theme Park was recently translated into Arabic. He appeared in the documentary The Nature of Existence and has provided interviews for To the Best of Our Knowledge, The Huffington Post UK, The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, and Caravan (India).
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