Gates of Heaven
Documentarian Errol Morris made his feature debut chronicling the rise and fall of two California pet cemeteries, profiling both the proprietors and the bereaved. Alternately touching and humorous, the film is as much a character study as it is an essay on how Americans have come to see their furry friends as family, deserving as much respect in death as in life. The film is also notable as film critic Roger Ebert claimed to have watched it over 100 times. Fellow filmmaker Werner Herzog, skeptical the film would ever be completed, told Morris he would “eat his shoe” if it were finished. Upon completion, Herzog kept his word, boiling and then eating one of his shoes in front of an audience -- captured for posterity in the documentary short, “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.”