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

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Overview

Throughout his work, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has sought out characters lost in their own eccentric worlds, and he has managed to convey their sense of wonder with their passion, be it a topiary gardener arguing the merits of hand shears in Fast, Cheap & Out of Control 1997 or astrophysicist Stephen Hawking discussing the origin of the universe in A Brief History of Time 1992. In his most provocative work since The Thin Blue Line 1988, Morris details what happens when this interior dreamscape ...
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Overview

Throughout his work, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has sought out characters lost in their own eccentric worlds, and he has managed to convey their sense of wonder with their passion, be it a topiary gardener arguing the merits of hand shears in Fast, Cheap & Out of Control 1997 or astrophysicist Stephen Hawking discussing the origin of the universe in A Brief History of Time 1992. In his most provocative work since The Thin Blue Line 1988, Morris details what happens when this interior dreamscape collides with the hard facts of history. As a young man accompanying his father to work at a state prison, Fred A. Leuchter, a bespectacled mouse of a man, learned how inefficient and inhumane most executions were, and he set out to design and build a better electric chair. Soon he began getting offers from state institutions throughout the country to redesign their electric chairs, along with gas chambers, gallows, and lethal injection machines. He quickly became a renowned expert in capital punishment. When the notorious Nazi sympathizer Ernest Zündel was arrested in Canada, he needed an expert witness to corroborate his assertion that the Holocaust was a hoax; and Leuchter soon found himself chiseling chunks from the gas chamber walls in Auschwitz -- on his honeymoon. His illegal samples showed no significant residue of cyanide, so he concluded that the Holocaust did not happen. He soon became a celebrity of the neo-Nazi set: he testified on behalf of Zündel, gave lectures around the world, and published the Holocaust revisionist tract Leuchter Report. Much to his surprise, his death-machine business began to flounder, his marriage collapsed, and he found himself pursued by Jewish organizations and creditors. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival.
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Editorial Reviews

Barnes & Noble - Pete Segall
In his seventh documentary, director Errol Morris The Thin Blue Line raises tricky questions about the nature of evil. Is Fred Leuchter, an ersatz engineer who takes unnerving pleasure discussing modifications of the electric chair, a demon or a fool? In 1988 Leuchter was hired by German Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel to find "scientific" proof that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. The documentary follows Leuchter as he tramps around the former concentration camp taking illegal samples for testing. Without an understanding of the properties of cyanide gas, Leuchter returned with what he believed to be "evidence" that indeed no one could have been gassed at Auschwitz. For his efforts, Leuchter became first a hit on the neo-Nazi lecture scene -- and then an unemployed, lonely pariah. Leuchter's case is perplexing, and Morris knows how to baffle us. Do we despise Leuchter for the almost willful ignorance that allows him to say the things he does, or do we pity the man for being so pathetic? There is no pat answer, and that is what makes Mr. Death a fascinating, difficult, and important film.
All Movie Guide - Tom Wiener
In an act of cinematic self-destruction to rival that of Senator Joseph McCarthy's more public meltdown in Emile De Antonio's Point of Order, Fred Leuchter, self-professed capital punishment expert, not only allows himself to be used by a nefarious Holocaust denier, he also permits director Errol Morris to capture the entire process on film. Hubris or sheer stupidity? It's hard to tell, because for the first third of the film, as Leuchter calmly discusses various modes of execution, it's possible to see him as no more than a zealous professional. Once he falls in with the notorious neo-Nazi Ernest Zündel, Leuchter's profound devotion to his profession becomes his undoing, though the film never loses its sense of the absurd. The sight of a man spending his honeymoon in Auschwitz taking samples off the walls of the gas chambers to prove that the Jewish inmates were not gassed isn't just tragic; it's laughable. Morris is clearly appalled by Leuchter, but he's also amazingly compassionate about the man's self-delusions. He also knows that a story this good practically tells itself, and he keeps out of the way as much as possible, allowing Leuchter to be his own executioner.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 6/6/2000
  • UPC: 025192071720
  • Original Release: 1999

    • Rating:

  • Source: Universal Studios
  • Region Code: 1
  • Time: 1:32:00
  • Format: DVD

Cast & Crew

Technical Credits
Errol Morris Director
Dorothy Aufiero Producer
Ted Bafaloukos Production Designer
David Collins Producer
Peter Donahue Cinematographer
Caroline Kaplan Executive Producer
Robert Richardson Camera Operator, Cinematographer
Caleb Sampson Score Composer
Karen Schmeer Editor
Jonathan Sehring Executive Producer
John Sloss Executive Producer
Michael Williams Producer
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