Standard Operating Procedure

[w/o horse]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0896866/
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/standardoperatingprocedure/

From the latter:

Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed America's image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains. Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, or were they documenting the aberrant behavior of a few "bad apples"? We set out to examine the context of these photographs. Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? We talked directly to the soldiers who took the photographs and who were in the photographs. Who are these people? What were they thinking? Over two years of investigation, we amassed a million and a half words of interview transcript, thousands of pages of unredacted reports, and hundreds of photographs. The story of Abu Ghraib is still shrouded in moral ambiguity, but it is clear what happened there. The Abu Ghraib photographs serve as both an expose and a coverup. An expose, because the photographs offer us a glimpse of the horror of Abu Ghraib; and a coverup because they convinced journalists and readers they had seen everything, that there was no need to look further. In recent news reports, we have learned about the destruction of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation tapes. A coverup. It has been front page news. But the coverup at Abu Ghraib involved thousands of prisoners and hundreds of soldiers. We are still learning about the extent of it. Many journalists have asked about "the smoking gun" of Abu Ghraib. It is the wrong question. As Philip Gourevitch has commented, Abu Ghraib is the smoking gun. The underlying question that we still have not resolved, four years after the scandal: how could American values become so compromised that Abu Ghraib—and the subsequent coverup—could happen?

This is Errol Morris' new film.  Big Errol Morris fan.

[pete]

a great interview

[JG]

errol morris is one of my favorite people ever, but this is not my favorite movie of his. like his other movies, he presents the facts, but whereas in those movies something greater emerged from that presentation, nothing really emerged here. there are glimpses of greatness to be sure, but it didn't move me in a way a movie like gates of heaven did. 

what i find more fascinating is the blog he's been writing for the new york times. he uses the abu ghraib photos as a springboard for talking about photography and all sorts of great stuff (like the use of reenactments in sop and thin blue bline). check it out.

[pete]

it was a good movie, but I think he spent too much time on a few bad decisions, and it dragged the film done.  the film never discussed that much about human perception; certainly nowhere near the details in his blog.  it featured too many beautiful shots regarding the re-enacted scenes.  I know he wants to depict horror, but the shots are at times too polished or clever for their purposes.  the graphics were excellent, but it kept on going back to this fact about how the photos were taken at the same time from different cameras.  I still don't understand the importance of the fact, despite its cool depiction through animated graphics.  the statements from the subjects were also presented in a kind of convoluted way.  it came together at the very end, but I got restless through a good chunk of it.
it got torn between something that is half very focused on the mechanics of the events and half honed in on the larger ramifications, but the two nearly canceled each other out and resulted in a mild disappointment.  it was worthwhile, but not very insightful.

[Alexandro]

I liked it a lot. One thing I never felt was that it dragged. Yes, I've seen the pictures before, and I've heard the stories, but watching the people in the eye while telling them is...I don't know, it is more eloquent in many ways, and it sheds light on sides of the whole thing that I don't think had come across before. One of them is how deep is the dumbing down of your moral reflexes in a situation.

I think the insight comes from that alone.

I had some problems with the polished style of Morris this time too, but at the same time he manages to make what is basically a talking heads lineup as entertaining as a thriller.