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View Full Version : Standard Operating Procedure _ Errol Morris interview


chuck
04-24-2008, 02:44 PM
I really enjoyed Fog of War (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317910/), and after reading this interview I'm very much looking forward to Errol Morris' take on Abu Ghraib.

Full interview here (http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/errol_morris).

Errol Morris site. (http://www.errolmorris.com/)

Some choice excerpts:

AVC: The location is a violation of Geneva, for one. You're not supposed to have prisoners of war in the middle of a war zone.

EM: That's correct. You're also not supposed to kidnap people's children in order to make them talk. You're not supposed to engage in all kinds of humiliation, sexual and otherwise. You know, it's a long, long, long, long list. I would sit and I would read The New York Times, not so many months ago, people rallying against the destruction of these two CIA tapes, involving the interrogation of [Guantanamo detainee Abu] Zubaydah. And I would ask myself, "Do people not know that they destroyed all the evidence in a prison of 10,000 people?" It's strange. We have more information—a glut of information—than ever before, and perhaps less knowledge. That's what's peculiar. And the only way you can deal with it, I suppose, is to make fun of it. I would rather watch Comedy Central for the news than I'd like to watch any other program on television. Maybe that shows you the state of affairs.


You could say that Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report are cynical, but I think in a way, they're the least cynical news shows on television, because they actually have standards. They are willing to speak up, in their own unmistakable way, about stuff that they think is just unbearably stupid and criminal. Not cynical. I think quite the contrary.


EM: "... I wish they'd just get it over with and make [Iraq] the 51st state, because I think it's the perfect red state: religious fundamentalists, lots of weaponry. How could you go wrong? We're already spending a significant fraction of our gross national product on the infrastructure; such as it is, on Iraq. Make it the 51st state and get it over with. [Laughs.]"

AVC: How do you do that, though? It seems like there's been plenty of instances in which big guys could have and should have been held accountable. Yet it's not as if they've slipped a noose. It's as if they deny that there's even a noose to be slipped.


EM: That's what's so bizarre. You know, there are smoking guns everywhere, and people are being constantly hit over the head with smoking guns, and people simply don't act on them. I tried to wade through the most recent "torture memo" [written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo] that was released through the ACLU. Unreadable. Eighty pages of legalese gobbledygook. Fourth Amendment this, Fifth Amendment that, Sixth Amendment something else. Treaties, conventions. You get to the very end, and the last paragraph tells you, "The President can do whatever he wants to do." The last paragraph tells you that you didn't have to read the 80-plus pages that proceeded it. Just read this last paragraph, the last couple of lines, which says the President can do what he damn well pleases. That's the memo. It's not about torture. Torture is the least of it. It's about how we fought a war 200-plus years ago to avoid having a king. We were supposed to be a constitutional democracy, and we've become, 200-plus years after this war, an absolute monarchy. How in hell did that happen, and where are the American people in all of this? I don't get it. It's weird. Everybody has heard the word "impeachment." Let's get on with it! I don't know what people are waiting for.

grady
04-24-2008, 03:06 PM
I should probably post a thread about this in the treatment forum but I saw this film about a month ago and it was quite good. However, in the same week I also saw Taxi to the Darkside and found that film to be much more powerful and affecting.

chuck
04-24-2008, 04:51 PM
oops - sorry grady - yeah, I should have put a thread in treatment as well.

BeautifulBurnout
04-25-2008, 12:13 AM
Thanks for the link - I didn't see Fog of War, so now there are two movies on my must-watch list.

grady
04-25-2008, 12:49 AM
No worries chuck, it just seems like treatment has been dormant for a while, or rather asleep. I imagine that will be changing with the start of summer film season next week with Iron Man.

A couple weeks back in the New Yorker a large excerpt/extract was featured from a forth coming book by Morris and Philip Gourevitch, the editor of Paris Review. It serves as a nice summary of the forth coming film. It's worth a read if you a free moment.

link (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/24/080324fa_fact_gourevitch)

Jaynee, check out Fog of War when you have a chance. It's a great film.

chuck
04-26-2008, 05:21 PM
Official film website

http://www.sonyclassics.com/standardoperatingprocedure/site.html

Jaynee - just a tip, don't go into Fog of War thinking it's about Mcnamara unloading all his guilt - it's a superb capturing of a man, who dominated the mid-20th century politically. Far more than imo - Rumsfeld will ever be remembered for.

chuck
04-26-2008, 11:34 PM
holy crap.

on grady's mention - have just watched Taxi to the Dark Side.

i'm stunned. just stunned.

it's out there to torrent - grab it (http://www.mininova.org/search/taxi+to+the+dark+side/seeds).

Is it true that Discovery Channel bought the US rights to this - and are now refusing to air it?

Version I watched was from BBC Storyville screening.

grady
04-27-2008, 12:01 AM
holy crap.

on grady's review - have just watched Taxi to the Dark Side.

i'm stunned. just stunned.

it's out there to torrent - grab it.

Thanks for the nod chuck, I should have elaborated a bit more on Taxi to the Darkside. The film won the best documentary oscar this past year and deserved it.

When I saw Taxi.... I found myself truly nauseous and very uneasy at certain points. It wasn't graphic images, depictions, descriptions or imagery of torture or violence in the film, but the malice and contempt members of the Bush Administration and the US government exhibit in the film towards humans.

Seeing Taxi so closely after Standard Operating Procedure, within roughly five days, I found Taxi to be much better. But then you also see the entire story of SOP in about five minutes or less during the first hour of Taxi... Morris has taken one aspect of the use of torture and made a film out of it. However, I feel that Morris's film and the points he's exploring are not as impacting or encompassing as those points in Taxi to the Darkside.

In the New York Times this weekend there was an article about Morris and his use of paying subjects in Standard Operating Procedure that is worth a read in light of this thread and the other links presented in previous messages.

link (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/movies/26morris.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

grady
04-27-2008, 04:12 AM
holy crap.

on grady's mention - have just watched Taxi to the Dark Side.

i'm stunned. just stunned.

it's out there to torrent - grab it (http://www.mininova.org/search/taxi+to+the+dark+side/seeds).

Is it true that Discovery Channel bought the US rights to this - and are now refusing to air it?

Version I watched was from BBC Storyville screening.

I wasn't aware of the situation with the discovery channel and after doing some cursory searching I found this on the film's wiki site:

In June 2007, the Discovery Channel bought the rights to broadcast Taxi to the Dark Side. However, in February 2008, they made public their intention never to broadcast the documentary due to its controversial nature. HBO then bought rights to the film and announced that it would be broadcast in September 2008, after which the Discovery Channel announced it would broadcast Taxi to the Dark Side in 2009. Many left-wing pundits and bloggers derided the decision, claiming that the Discovery Channel didn't want to risk Gibney criticizing the network at the Academy Awards should his movie win the Best Documentary Oscar, and also pointed out that the Discovery Channel's projected 2009 broadcast date would occur after President George W Bush left office.

Strangelet
04-27-2008, 11:52 AM
full version of taxi to the dark side

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8466893605544020392&ei=i5EUSO2qNI7k4ALxgoDVBA&hl=en

Deckard
04-29-2008, 03:18 PM
I'm slowly working my way through the various pieces and videos posted around here... just watched Taxi to the Dark Side. Thanks Grady (& Chuck) for the recommendation. And Strangelet for the link.

Anyone who hasn't watched it yet - I recommend it.

If only one of the major networks would screen this at prime time. If only....

(how left wing and propagandist of me :rolleyes: )

grady
04-30-2008, 02:10 AM
In addition to my primary job as an accountant, I work as projectionist at a local second run theater in Portland, Oregon.

location (http://www.laurelhursttheater.com/showtimes.html)

The past five days we've been showing Taxi to the Darkside. Quite often most of the films we're showing you could go rent at the video store, but why pay for a DVD when you can see images projected onto a screen much larger than any home presentation and drink beer and wine whilst eating pizza(!)?

My whole point though is that Taxi has been selling out each evening, and despite only showing once an evening at one theater in the city and Portland is very left as far as politics go, but it's quite amusing and reassuring to stand in the back of the auditorium and hear hisses and scoffs as scenes unfold showing appalling images and dialog throughout the film.

(My intention of this post was to keep with the leftist propaganda joke put forth by Deckard coming from the left coast of the US)

chuck
05-01-2008, 03:53 PM
I suppose you could say that the BBC is a major network - and they screened a chopped down - 74 minute version of the movie.

Wrong continent I guess - and generally preaching to the converted.

grady - what's the running length of the feature film?

I can't imagine it showing on one of the big networks here in NZ (big here, being a relative measure) ergo. TV1, TV2, TV3 ... but it might possibly show on the doco channel that runs as part of Sky.

Might come as part of one of the film festivals though - so will keep an eye out. And as said above - generally preaching to the converted here.

Keeping on the leftist propoganda and viewing tip.

Robert Fisk's documentary, Beirut to Bosnia that was again produced in partnership with - but banned from screening on Discovery.

Thanks to the marvel that is the internerd is available to torrent here (http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3731332/Discovery_Channel_-_From_Beirut_to_Bosnia_BANNED_FROM_DISCOVERY_).

Few details here (http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/video.htm#eirut).

They might also be available on google video.

I've downloaded the series - but not yet watched it. Will start another thread in treatment to discuss once done so.

grady
05-02-2008, 12:09 AM
I suppose you could say that the BBC is a major network - and they screened a chopped down - 74 minute version of the movie.

Wrong continent I guess - and generally preaching to the converted.

grady - what's the running length of the feature film?

The feature film version was 106 minutes or so with credits.

Strangelet
06-05-2008, 11:55 AM
just finished reading the lucifer effect by phillip zimbardo. anyone else read this? it was interesting to compare his psychological analysis with some of the intentions of these documentaries.

http://www.lucifereffect.com/blitzer.mov

chuck
07-04-2008, 07:01 PM
This is an old newstip - but I thought it worth noting. Pretty flimsy argument by the MPAA - but it's not like anyone takes much notice of them.

MPAA rejects poster for Taxi to the Dark Side

http://www.variety.com/VR1117977926.html

" The image in question is a news photo of two U.S. soldiers walking away from the camera with a hooded detainee between them.

An MPAA spokesman said: "We treat all films the same. Ads will be seen by all audiences, including children. If the advertising is not suitable for all audiences it will not be approved by the advertising administration."


According to ThinkFilm distribution prexy Mark Urman, the reason given by the Motion Picture Assn. of America for rejecting the poster is the image of the hood, which the MPAA deemed unacceptable in the context of such horror films as "Saw" and "Hostel." "To think that this is not apples and oranges is outrageous," he said. "The change renders the art illogical, without any power or meaning."


The MPAA also rejected the one-sheet for Roadside Attractions' 2006 film "The Road to Guantanamo," which featured a hooded prisoner hanging from his handcuffed wrists. At the time, according to Howard Cohen, co-president of Roadside Attractions, the reason given was that the burlap bag over the prisoner's head depicted torture, which was not appropriate for children to see."


FFS - NOW they're thinking of the children.


Unbridled fantasy horror of grotesque proportions is OK.


Reality is not.


"Go back to bed America.... " -Hicks