Manacled Mormon, Cloned Pooch Headline Errol Morris’s ‘Tabloid’
Errol Morris
IFC Films via Bloomberg
Errol Morris, director of "Tabloid."
Errol Morris, director of "Tabloid." Source: IFC Films via Bloomberg
Joyce Mckinney in "Tabloid," a film directed by Errol Morris. Source: IFC Films via Bloomberg
Errol Morris has gotten movie ideas from weird newspaper stories about pet cemeteries and a Florida town where residents cut off their limbs to collect insurance money. No wonder his new documentary is called “Tabloid.”
It’s about a former beauty queen, Joyce McKinney, who allegedly kidnapped her ex-boyfriend, chained him to a bed and raped him while he was on a Mormon mission in England in 1977. The story became a tabloid sensation often referred to as the “Manacled Mormon” case.
McKinney resurfaced in the headlines three decades later when her beloved pit bull Booger died and she had him cloned in South Korea, giving her five identical puppies.
“I was unaware of Joyce McKinney until I read a wire- service story in the Boston Globe about a woman who had her dogs cloned,” Morris recalled during an interview at a boutique New York hotel. “It mentioned that this woman also was the protagonist in a 30-year-old sex-and-chain story. Of course, that immediately got my attention.”
Morris won an Oscar for “The Fog of War,” his 2003 documentary about former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the painful lessons he learned from his role in the Vietnam War. The filmmaker also helped free a convicted murderer with his 1988 investigative documentary “The Thin Blue Line.”
Tabloid War
The McKinney saga might seem trivial by comparison, but Morris sees deeper meaning there.
“Sure, it’s not McNamara talking about nuclear apocalypse,” he said. “However, I think there are a number of fascinating themes -- about the search for truth, the nature of love and how we see ourselves.”
Morris, 63, has short white hair and an impish grin. He sipped coffee and punctuated his remarks with animated gestures as we spoke in a suite with a sweeping view of lower Manhattan.
Though he’s a tabloid aficionado, Morris is appalled by the News of the World scandal that has shaken Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
“I think the News of the World crossed a number of journalistic and ethical lines,” he said. “They broke the law and obliterated the facts.”
McKinney has disputed many of the purported facts in “Tabloid,” especially the accounts given by reporter Peter Tory and photographer Kent Gavin, two British journalists who covered the case.
Marshmallow in Meter
Tory’s Daily Express and Gavin’s Daily Mirror waged a tabloid war over the story, including allegations of kinky sex, fake guns and brainwashing.
“Joyce says she had no idea there would be other people in the movie,” Morris said. “There had to be other people because they’re part of the story. And it’s not as though I portray these tabloid journalists as purveyors of the truth. Listening to them, you become aware that they helped create this story to lure readers to their newspapers.
Morris agrees that tabloids are fond of exaggeration, citing a line from Tory as an example: “He says, ‘I think it was ropes, but ‘chains’ sounds better.’”
McKinney, who claims to have a genius IQ, also is a colorful talker. Speaking in a soft Southern drawl, the garrulous blonde peppers the film with her down-home expressions.
“She’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met,” Morris said. “Who else would say, ‘A woman can’t rape a man. It would be like putting a marshmallow in a parking meter.’”
“Tabloid,” from Sundance Selects, opened yesterday in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Washington, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City.
(Rick Warner is the movie critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own. This interview was adapted from a longer conversation.)
To contact the writer on the story: Rick Warner in New York at rwarner1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.
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