"Standard
Operating Procedure"
A Critique by Ron Steinman
Errol Morris' latest film, "Standard Operating Procedure," about the
abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, is at times
brilliant, infuriating, tedious, at one hour and 57 minutes far too
long, boring, with high-end graphics that are far too slick, looking
as if they are from an expensive television commercial. The musical
score by Danny Elfman is too loud, similar to a feature film and too
demanding on the ear. It never lets up in its effort to carry the
viewer through segment after segment as if being subtle was
something that never crossed Morris' or Elfman's minds. The
relentlessness of the music gave me a headache. The heavy, pulsating
score was so obvious that it failed to convince me of a scene's
meaning.
Many
films ago, Morris developed the Interrotron, a device that separates
him from the interview subject by a TV screen. The subject never
looks directly at Morris, which is the way interviews usually take
place in films. Each of the interviewees sits against a blue-gray
mottled wall that looks as if a painter left for lunch and never
returned. Usually in tight close-ups, and sometimes in a medium
shot, though always head-on, each subject comes up in a different
position on the screen in different takes. Rather than the editor
using a cutaway or a dissolve or a quick cut between comments to
eliminate the dreaded jump cut, Morris moves his people sideways
across the screen. I am not sure why he does that, but it did not
bother me when I watched the movie. I found it valuable that the
subjects looked directly into the camera compared to many films
where the interviewee looks to one side or another (a method used in
many documentaries so opposing interviewees shot at different times
can appear to answer each other as if they were carrying on a
debate.) Looking directly into the camera is a plus. It creates
intimacy. The subjects' faces have little shadowing on them. The
lighting is flat. The faces have a harsh tone. It makes it difficult
to watch them as we listen to what they have to say.
However, the rrotron is another matter
because it is a device Morris uses to manipulate the answers he
seeks from his subject. It allows Morris to hide behind the barrier
of a TV screen, never to confront his subject directly. In the film
we occasionally hear Morris' voice asking a question. However,
without eye contact, the interviewer seen only by the interviewee on
a separate screen serves to create, at least for me, a false
environment. Eye contact in an interview is essential to get at the
truth. Unless we are dealing with a polemic, truth should not lie in
the hands of the interviewer. Truth comes from the subject and how
we, as an audience, parse what the subject says. It should always be
up to the audience to decide if the interviewee is believable.
Abu Ghraib Prisoner Abuse
"Standard Operating Procedure" filmmaker Errol Morris. Continuing a
trend in many documentary films, Morris used re-enactments.
Thankfully, they were few. They were not obtrusive, yet they were
clearly not real. They are a trick played out on camera and in the
editing to make the audience believe they were watching the real
thing. I found them ungainly, and, more importantly, not needed. Let
me take it a step further, or better, a step backwards and look at
the various devices filmmakers use to make the audience believe that
what it is watching is real. In some cases re-enactments are so bold
that the director makes no effort to play a game with the viewer. We
might see men on horseback. We might see people fleeing a volcanic
eruption. However, there are other means to fool the viewer into
believing what he or she is seeing is the truth. Some of these are:
shots and sequences in soft focus; often fuzzy shots; sometimes
shots in deep focus with a lens to approximate night; slow motion;
slow motion that is out of focus; using sepia to designate an older
time; re-enactments through close-ups of hands writing, or cars
speeding down a road; exteriors of a place similar to but not the
real location where an event happened; taking a shot from column A
and adding it to column C even if each came from a different time
and even a different shoot. This last is often used in films about
war where it is mostly impossible to find the shot that defines the
story you want to tell. Obviously, there are other examples.
Filmmakers know them, use them and even create new ones when they
think they need them. We are now in the world of fakery. TV news
magazines have been using these gimmicks for years. In cable
television there is hardly any real or true footage in what I define
as hybrid documentaries. You know them when you see them, but you
accept them because of their entertainment value.
This brings me to another point about so-called non-fiction films
and the world of documentary filmmaking. Though wide and diverse,
who among us who make documentary films has not strayed from
time-honored methods in order to pander to current tastes? As we can
well imagine, practices today are different from the past, recent or
distant. Even techniques from the immediate past are meaningless and
often discarded because filmmakers and critics consider them
ancient, a dirty word. Some Internet junkies believe anything, even
a few minutes old, is useless. Those who rely on the Web and its
ever-changing dynamic demand speed, and speed fosters impatience.
Cable television helped perpetuate the myth that it was making
serious documentary films, but cable TV, with the occasional
exception, only filled airtime. Despite that, standards remain high
for independent films that play in theaters and for those few that
appear on the pay channels such as HBO and Showtime. The cop-out is
to call a film non-fiction. Using that handle allows the filmmaker
to do whatever he or she wants to achieve his or her goal, however
shaky it might be.
By now we should be aware of another controversy surrounding this
film. Morris admits to having paid certain of his subjects to appear
in his film, something not usually done in documentary filmmaking.
Money should not change hands for an interview. If you give money to
a person to talk about himself or herself or to discuss the
designated subject for pay, you had better be sure that the person
will not say what you want to hear, i.e., to satisfy you for that
new pair of shoes he or she covets. Where does truth begin and the
human desire to satisfy, perhaps even an individual's pandering
cease? True, in documentary filmmaking, the filmmaker often buys the
subject lunch, sometimes pays for his or her airfare, and even a
hotel to stay for a night or two. These costs are for convenience.
Providing those services are common and rarely cause problems
similar to the ones I just described. None are as serious as paying
the person to talk.
In a documentary, it is one thing to interview a subject until said
person is ready to drop from exhaustion or runs out of information,
though that is not technique of which I approve. As with a police
interrogation, the subject may simply start saying anything to get
some sleep, a cigarette, sip of water, or a sandwich. The interview
becomes something other than filmmaking. It becomes manipulation. At
times, though I detected this at work in "Standard Operating
Procedure," I cannot say for sure it was in play.
Errol Morris is no exception in
his desire to make an entertaining non-fiction film. Though I find
it difficult to find anything in "Standard Operating Procedure"
entertaining. What he does in "Standard Operating Procedure" is no
different from what some others do in documentary filmmaking. But
even if what he does is unconventional, it does not guarantee or
engender success. Good storytelling matters, and as much as I do not
favor Morris' film, he knows how to tell a good story. Through no
fault of his own, his story, thus his journalism – very important
here – has noticeable holes. No officer, other than Brig. General
Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade at
Abu Ghraib, appears in the film. Having been relieved of her
command, she can say anything she wants, and, as her defense, she
does.
For a documentary film to succeed it need not be based on
journalism, but if the subject derives from a known news story, the
journalism had better be strong, accurate and beyond reproach. Is
the journalism in this film solid? To a point, perhaps, but it is
incomplete. There are serious holes in the film because the
government, meaning the Department of Defense, provided no one to
speak about the tragedy of Abu Ghraib. Nor were the main
perpetrators, currently serving long prison terms for the crimes at
the prison, made available. The disclaimer stating these facts at
the end of the film means we have a half-baked cake. Sadly, no
officer was ever convicted of any of the crimes committed at the
prison. Worse, no one in a high position, whether in the military or
on the civilian side of the government, ever took responsibility for
the events at Abu Ghraib. Of course, no one ever will. Perhaps that
is the saddest message of all.
In America, there seems to be a naiveté among journalists,
filmmakers and scholars about war and how it corrupts everything it
touches. To believe otherwise is the highest expression of
ignorance. The loss of morals in any society, or what passes for
morality, will always be the victim. Abu Ghraib is not the end of
the Western world as we know it. To a lesser extent, it is not even
the end of the higher moral standards we in the United States
supposedly have and aspire to. In Vietnam, were there other My Lais?
Probably, but after all these years, they remain hidden from view.
There were many atrocities in the Vietnam War, some reported, others
not. In the Iraq war and in future wars, will there be other Abu
Ghraibs or their like? Probably. Remember, it is impossible to
escape that wars corrupt those who perpetuate them and those who
fight in them. All the handwringing and all the investigations will
change nothing. Note, too, in recent weeks there have been stories
emanating from the prison at Guantanamo Bay about how FBI officials
kept a dossier detailing how their brethren in the CIA tortured
prisoners to get what its operatives considered important
information. Meaning, as much as things change, they apparently
never will.
Lynndie England, one of the perpetrators of torture at Abu Ghraib
prison. Did I learn anything new about the disgrace of Abu Ghraib by
watching this film? Not really. Did I see anything I did not see
before Errol Morris made his film? Perhaps there were a few stills I
did not see when the story first broke. The interviews, particularly
of Lynndie England, and a few of the others are worth the price of
admission. Observing the faces and hearing the words of some of
those involved in the torture has enormous value. Reminding me that
what happened at Abu Ghraib is a stain on America, however, does not
convince me it was enough to make a film. .................................................................................................................................................................
At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002.
