Interrotron

In order to interview significant historical personages including Robert McNamara, the documentary director Errol Morris has forged historical memory itself through his Interrotron, a name that “reminds him of alien devices in ’50s science-fiction movies,” and has been America’s conscience for over thirty years. For Morris, his Interrotron “creates greater distance and greater intimacy … it creates the true first person,” he said in an interview in 2004 with FML Magazine, “now when people make eye contact with me, it can be preserved on film.” For a person seeking the truth behind the person sitting in front of him, it appears that the use of the tron suffix is entirely natural arising from his earliest exposure to cinema and comics. First used in his film Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, the Interrotron was named by Morris’ wife, Julia Sheehan, “because it combined two important concepts – terror and interview.”[1]

[1]. http://www.errolmorris.com/content/eyecontact/interrotron.html accessed Sept 30, 2015. http://www.rogerebert.com/festivals-and-awards/errol-morris-megatron-son-of-interrotron accessed Sept 30, 2015.