Here is a reaction to the reactions at Berlin.
Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris, 2008)
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Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
- Contact:
Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris, 2008)
Morris' latest doc screened in Berlin and is a documentary about the Abu Gharib scandal of 2003. Music is by Danny Elfman
Here is a reaction to the reactions at Berlin.
Here is a reaction to the reactions at Berlin.
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Marcel Gioberti
- Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2007 1:55 am
- Location: Torino, Italy
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Marcel Gioberti
- Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2007 1:55 am
- Location: Torino, Italy
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Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
- Contact:
Here are some clips from the film.
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Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
- Contact:
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
It's a great doc which gives full measure to the horror and surreality of the situation it interrogates. Morris' 'recreations' are at their most florid and stylised, but it doesn't detract from the weight of actual evidence on display. They're so highly aestheticised, in fact, that there's no mistaking them for documentary reality, and they just serve to throw the actual documentary reality in the film - copious, constant, losing none of its appalling power - into stark relief.
Otherwise, the film is something of a step back to the form of The Thin Blue Line - a good thing in my book - since it's less the portrait of an individual and more the exploration of an event, or series of events, through multiple, more or less subjective and self-serving, viewpoints. Subjectivity and volition is a big topic, not least in the almost off-hand reveal of the significance of Morris' title, which gets to the heart of the different ways in which we can read and assess images (and the events which they replace).
Although Morris keeps his focus tight and low, many big targets get casually knocked down along the way: a pretty shrewd 'collateral damage' approach to polemics.
Otherwise, the film is something of a step back to the form of The Thin Blue Line - a good thing in my book - since it's less the portrait of an individual and more the exploration of an event, or series of events, through multiple, more or less subjective and self-serving, viewpoints. Subjectivity and volition is a big topic, not least in the almost off-hand reveal of the significance of Morris' title, which gets to the heart of the different ways in which we can read and assess images (and the events which they replace).
Although Morris keeps his focus tight and low, many big targets get casually knocked down along the way: a pretty shrewd 'collateral damage' approach to polemics.
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lady wakasa
- Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2006 2:26 am
- Location: Over Yonder
- Contact:
An interview with Errol Morris re Standard Operating Procedure
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Galen Young
- Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2004 12:46 am
I think this is the first time I've ever left an Errol Morris film scratching my head, wondering what the hell is he up to. Either this is his penultimate masterpiece -- or he is taking a stab at making the freakiest torture porn a la Salò cum documentary ever made!
Those shimmering splashes of blood on the cell room floor, the gaping maw of a savagely attacking dog, the slow motion dance of water spraying from the (Psycho-angle) shower head, the shredded paper floating -- image after grotesquely beautiful image -- every time one of the 'reenactments' came on, I kept thinking to myself -- I... am... watching... an Art Film... about the torture at Abu Ghraib. As mesmerizing as it was to watch, I thought it was very distracting from the grim real-life photos and that one bit of grainy action caught on video, that Morris played for all its worth.
Really loved all the animations of the photos, the deciphering of the timeline, etc. -- set against the sad faces of the participants -- but every time those super slick, lush, beautiful dramatizations hit, it jolted me right out of it. Enough to start examining the shots from a purely technical stand point -- like how on earth did he get those playing cards to bounce on edge, so delicately, so beautifully, in absolutely gorgeous slow motion...holy crap!
I would really love to know how the people in the film -- reacted to watching the final film itself. To see all the stuff that they did and witnessed, so lovingly recreated in the fashion that has become a trademark of Errol Morris -- what in the hell would they make of it?!
(also have to mention, I sorely missed it not having a Philip Glass score...)
Those shimmering splashes of blood on the cell room floor, the gaping maw of a savagely attacking dog, the slow motion dance of water spraying from the (Psycho-angle) shower head, the shredded paper floating -- image after grotesquely beautiful image -- every time one of the 'reenactments' came on, I kept thinking to myself -- I... am... watching... an Art Film... about the torture at Abu Ghraib. As mesmerizing as it was to watch, I thought it was very distracting from the grim real-life photos and that one bit of grainy action caught on video, that Morris played for all its worth.
Really loved all the animations of the photos, the deciphering of the timeline, etc. -- set against the sad faces of the participants -- but every time those super slick, lush, beautiful dramatizations hit, it jolted me right out of it. Enough to start examining the shots from a purely technical stand point -- like how on earth did he get those playing cards to bounce on edge, so delicately, so beautifully, in absolutely gorgeous slow motion...holy crap!
I would really love to know how the people in the film -- reacted to watching the final film itself. To see all the stuff that they did and witnessed, so lovingly recreated in the fashion that has become a trademark of Errol Morris -- what in the hell would they make of it?!
(also have to mention, I sorely missed it not having a Philip Glass score...)
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Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
- Contact:
Harper's magazine has an excellent essay about the film. Read it here.
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Tom Hagen
- Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:35 pm
- Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
I saw this film tonight, and can not be effulgent enough in my praise. Morris is our finest documentarian, and again executes his signature techniques to precision. The film does a great service in examining the moral ambivalence that led to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, while remaining as subjective as possible in light of the matter at stake.
It is unfortunate that this film has not elicited more discussion on the forum. I suppose that many of us have grown so weary of this war, so disheartened by the endless stream of revelations about the misdeeds from Abu Ghraib to the Pentagon, that it is a feat of endurance to still care at this point. I have seen plenty of other post 9/11 "lefty" docs about the war on terror, the Administration, Iraq, etc. Some have been poignant, some have been trite, many made me angry, and most will be forgettable in the years to come. But this was the first documentary about the new wars that has made me genuinely heartsick. Tonight I wept in the cinema, pained with the unmistakable truth that my country -- based as it is on fundamental principles of constitutional rights for all -- has abandoned the very human rights that it was predicated upon. As a citizen, I felt entirely implicated in what took place.
There was not much that I learned for the first time from this film. But it was the first time that I was exposed to many of the uncensored photographs. As distressing as the photos are, the context that the film provides is even more horrifying: the genuine acts of unconscionable torture that both exacerbated and exceeded anything in those photographs remains unknown to us. There were no cameras. And there are no witnesses. The soldiers and MPs in Abu Ghraib, though morally culpable for their actions, were clearly and unmistakably inspired by their superiors in the chain of command and in the intelligence services. What happened there -- the sexual humiliation, the physical abuse, all the rest -- was merely a ripple effect from the tacitly understood and condoned culture of torture from above. For me, the reality of those unseen acts is far more horrifying than anything Pasolini could show me in a narrative film, or, for that matter, anything that Morris could re-stage here.
As pure technique, this film was exceptionally well made; it contained the best contrivances of both The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War. But the substance of Standard Operating Procedure is so compelling, that I often found myself ignoring Morris's technique.
It is unfortunate that this film has not elicited more discussion on the forum. I suppose that many of us have grown so weary of this war, so disheartened by the endless stream of revelations about the misdeeds from Abu Ghraib to the Pentagon, that it is a feat of endurance to still care at this point. I have seen plenty of other post 9/11 "lefty" docs about the war on terror, the Administration, Iraq, etc. Some have been poignant, some have been trite, many made me angry, and most will be forgettable in the years to come. But this was the first documentary about the new wars that has made me genuinely heartsick. Tonight I wept in the cinema, pained with the unmistakable truth that my country -- based as it is on fundamental principles of constitutional rights for all -- has abandoned the very human rights that it was predicated upon. As a citizen, I felt entirely implicated in what took place.
There was not much that I learned for the first time from this film. But it was the first time that I was exposed to many of the uncensored photographs. As distressing as the photos are, the context that the film provides is even more horrifying: the genuine acts of unconscionable torture that both exacerbated and exceeded anything in those photographs remains unknown to us. There were no cameras. And there are no witnesses. The soldiers and MPs in Abu Ghraib, though morally culpable for their actions, were clearly and unmistakably inspired by their superiors in the chain of command and in the intelligence services. What happened there -- the sexual humiliation, the physical abuse, all the rest -- was merely a ripple effect from the tacitly understood and condoned culture of torture from above. For me, the reality of those unseen acts is far more horrifying than anything Pasolini could show me in a narrative film, or, for that matter, anything that Morris could re-stage here.
As pure technique, this film was exceptionally well made; it contained the best contrivances of both The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War. But the substance of Standard Operating Procedure is so compelling, that I often found myself ignoring Morris's technique.
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denti alligator
- Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 1:36 am
- Location: "born in heaven, raised in hell"
Just watched this.
I was a bit disappointed, mainly because I felt the question of chain of command was left unexplored. Also, the role of non-military personnel, those sub-contracted by the government, was not made clear. We're left with a picture of a group of young, inexperienced soldiers who "just fucked up."
I was a bit disappointed, mainly because I felt the question of chain of command was left unexplored. Also, the role of non-military personnel, those sub-contracted by the government, was not made clear. We're left with a picture of a group of young, inexperienced soldiers who "just fucked up."
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Adam
- Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:29 am
- Location: Los Angeles CA
- Contact:
Why would you think it is his second-to-last masterpiece?Galen Young wrote:Either this is his penultimate masterpiece -- or he is taking a stab at making the freakiest torture porn a la Salò cum documentary ever made!
(penultimate = second-to-last; does not equal greatest or ultimate)
But anyway, I'm in the middle of the book by Philip Guerevitch, based largely on transcripts from interviews conducted by Morris for the film. he says there were more than a million pages. (I find that hard to believe, but...)
The book is a more thorough non-fiction piece, and points out repeated examples of the flows in leadership and the chain-of-command, imprecise and non-existent directions, and the semi-mysterious Military Intelligence personnel who actually conducted most of the torture.
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Galen Young
- Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2004 12:46 am
It's a goofy mistake, I meant to say ultimate. (was reading PKD's The Penultimate Truth around that time and the word must have been stuck in my head for some damn reason!)Adam wrote:Why would you think it is his second-to-last masterpiece?
(penultimate = second-to-last; does not equal greatest or ultimate)
I think the Gourevitch book makes a great companion piece to the film. The first part of Seymour Hersh's book Chain of Command also has a interesting account of the torture going on at Abu Ghraib.