Mr. Death: The Rise And Fall Of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

Year: 1999

Grade: B-

Country: USA

Director: Morris

Review

morris manages to find yet another unique individual and document the fine line between genius and insanity. the film is well-made, of course, but the story isn’t quite as compelling as some of his other films. it follows fred leuchter who designs and builds capital punishment equipment – from the gallows to electric chairs. he justifies his profession by giving specific examples of executions turned torture as a result of faulty equipment – good equipment is the only humane way to kill a person, he posits. this sort of half logic (unfortunately) pervades his thinking. he actually started working on electric chairs, but soon states asked him to work on their gallows or gas chambers or lethal injection machines. he admits that his qualifications as an engineer of electric chairs doesn’t translate to other machines of death, but takes the work anyway since he feels it comes down to an ability to learn more than anything else. later he is asked to investigate the gas chambers in auschwitz to determine whether or not people were really gassed there. he’s completely unqualified, but seems to be ignorant of this fact. his ignorance of investigative procedure and hard science leads to a false finding – people were not killed in the “gas chambers” in auschwitz. he testifies to this in a court room and is immediately branded an anti-semite. this is not helped by the fact that he discusses his findings at various ‘revisionist’ churches, etc. across the nation. the movie is structured like ‘thin blue line’ or ‘capturing the friedmans’ in that it teeters back and forth between one side and another. leuchter presents his facts “there weren’t any gas ducts in the chambers, thus there was no way to introduce or expel the toxin.” while another offers a counter point “leuchter failed to look at contemporary blueprints which clearly show the existence of gas ducts. since the 40s changes have been made.” and it goes on like that. unfortunately leuchter is always given the inferior position – others can respond directly to his arguments, but he doesn’t seem to get the chance to redirect. it’s clear that morris thinks leuchter is in the wrong here, and i suppose there’s nothing wrong with that since morris is right. but morris does not go so far as to call leuchter an anti-semite. the film ends with a voice-over (one of many) that essentially says that leuchter got caught up in his own hubris – he thought that he could figure this puzzle out, but it was beyond him and his mistaken conclusion caused him much more trouble than he bargained for (since the trial he’s lost contracts with states to work on their execution equipment, has gotten divorced, been brought up on criminal charges and is broke). i think the guy is completely wrong, but i do feel sorry for him because i sort of got the impression that had he gotten the facts straight he’d be much better off.