User:WordsfromaSong/sandbox

Background
For much of the decade leading up to the production of his first film, Errol Morris was a graduate student studying history and philosophy. He enrolled in the history of science program at Princeton, where his difficult relationship with the program's director, Thomas Kuhn, eventually lead to him being asked to leave the school in 1972. He then went on to attend the University of California - Berkeley as a student in the philosophy program, where he began doing research on the serial Ed Gein, even interviewing him several times. The University was not supportive of Morris' research, and he was eventually asked to leave that program as well.

Morris began to cultivate an interest in film while regularly attending screenings at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. It was the archive's director Tom Luddy who introduced Morris to the German filmmaker Werner Herzog. They became friends, and Herzog encouraged Morris to begin making his own films. After a trip to Florida where he tried and failed to make a film about the residents of a small town there, Morris read a San Francisco Times article with the headline: 450 Dead Pets Going to Napa Valley." This story about dead pets being exhumed from one pet cemetery and reburied in another became the basis for Gates of Heaven.

Production
After a trip to Florida where he tried and failed to make a film about the residents of a small town there, Errol Morris read a San Francisco Times article with the headline: 450 Dead Pets Going to Napa Valley." This story about dead pets being exhumed from one pet cemetery and reburied in another became the basis for Gates of Heaven. For financing Morris borrowed money from family and friends, and the film was shot throughout the spring and summer of 1977, with the total budget estimated at #125,000. Production was difficult at times, with Morris frequently clashing with his cinematographer over the film's visual style. Morris ultimately ended up firing three cinematographers before finally settling on Neil Burgess, who would also shoot his second film Vernon, Florida.

Gates of Heaven had its premier at the 1978 New York Film Festival, and would play at various other festivals around the world before being picked up for a limited theatrical run by New Yorker Films in 1981.

Home Media
The film was initially released on DVD by MGM in 2005. In 2015 The Criterion Collection made it available as part of a new special edition DVD and Blu-Ray that also included Morris' second film Vernon, Florida.