Standard Operating Procedure

Busy day — DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (Bunuel version), Errol Morris interview, Shane Meadows interview, a couple little parties, and THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF MY SEXUAL FAILURES (note: this is a film).

TOO busy — no time or strength left to write about it. Will try to tackle the highlights later. For now, my favourite story from Errol Morris’ 90 minute onstage interview/conversation/interrogation —

When Morris worked as a private detective (true!) after making the fabulous VERNON FLORIDA and finding himself unable to raise cash for further films, he met a few guys who were ex-F.B.I. or C.I.A. His favourite person was a man called Harry Gossett, who had quite the F.B.I. Morris asked why. It turns out Gossett just couldn’t bear it anymore, and the reason boiled down to his partner at the time.

As part of their investigations, the F.B.I. agents would do a lot or peripheral interviewing, talking to the guy three doors down, workmates, people not directly related to the case they were on. And when they rang the doorbell to talk to these innocent people, Gossett’s partner was in the habit of flipping open his I.D. and saying “Well… I guess I don’t have to explain why we’re here.”

And people would immediately start crying. (No one is innocent.)

Gossett was bothered by this and asked his partner to quit it. But it happened again. This time the sobbing man was real old. “I thought you’d never find me,” he wept. Turns out he was a WWII deserter.

Morris, hearing this from Gossett, asked, “So, you told him it was OK and let him go, right?”

“No. We were government agents. We had to take him in.”

And that’s why Gossett quit the F.B.I.