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

$8 Special Event
Director in Person
Screening on Film
Directed by Errol Morris.
US, 1999, 35mm, color, 96 min.

Morris’s latest feature is an unsettling journey into the world of Massachusetts inventor Fred Leuchter, Jr. Leuchter’s fascination with the mechanics of capital punishment began when he was a young boy visiting the prisons where his father worked as an employee of the Massachusetts Department of Correction. The interest of this self-described "execution technologist" in the mechanisms of death led to his development of the lethal injection machine and ultimately to an investigation of the death camps of Auschwitz. Leuchter is a man who carries no malice, but his unhesitating belief in himself and his science makes him a willing tool of others who exploit him for their own ends.

Part of film series

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Curious Cinema: An Errol Morris Retrospective