Standard Operating Procedure _ Errol Morris interview

[chuck]

I really enjoyed Fog of War, and after reading this interview I'm very much looking forward to Errol Morris' take on Abu Ghraib.

Full interview here.

Errol Morris site.

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]

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]

oops - sorry grady - yeah, I should have put a thread in treatment as well.

[BeautifulBurnout]

Thanks for the link - I didn't see Fog of War, so now there are two movies on my must-watch list.

[grady]

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

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

[chuck]

Official film website

http://www.sonyclassics.com/standard...dure/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]

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.

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]

Originally Posted by chuck

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

[grady]

Originally Posted by chuck

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.

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]

full version of taxi to the dark side

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...LxgoDVBA&hl=en