Gina Telaroli
March 28, 2008 | 3:53 pm EST
If you’re eagerly awaiting Errol Morris’ latest film Standard Operating Procedure (I am!) and are in the San Francisco and NYC area you’ll want to take note that he’ll be at an Apple store near you:
Join Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris (”The Fog of War“) at the Apple Store as he screens clips and discusses the making of his latest film, “Standard Operating Procedure.” The film explores how photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison have changed the war in Iraq and changed America’s image of itself. After the discussion, Morris will take questions from the audience. Sony Pictures Classics will release the film on April 25.
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — Under gray skies all but obscured by an opaque canopy and high concrete walls topped with razor wire, two bearded young men in tan tunics are having “rec time” inside separate chain-link pens. One jogs frenziedly back and forth in the 30-foot enclosure; the other is curled like a fetus at the base of a cement block.
It’s a dreary winter afternoon, but the scene could be any time of the day or night. The hour for rec time is one of the few unpredictable features in a day in the life of a detainee. [LA Times]
That’s just an excerpt from a great article in today’s LA Times that traces a day in a Guantanamo detainee’s life. The article goes on to detail the schedule of someone who is in the prison starting with their 5am reveille and their end of a day which is signaled at 10 p.m. by the arrival of the bedsheet. But don’t think this means lights out - prisoners have to sleep with the lights on, many growing their hair long to try and cover their eyes with it.
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Errol Morris premiered his new film, Standard Operating Procedure, at The Berlin Film Festival on Tuesday night. The documentary follows in the footsteps of films like Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side and takes on the issue of war and how digital imagery can change our perspective on it. While other films have dealt with the actual acts caught on tape, Morris takes a deeper look into context of the actual photographs.
Morris has always dealt with his subject matter in unique ways, right down to filming his interviews in a machine called the interrotron . In Standard Operating Procedure he uses re-created scenes and fictional footage, storytelling methods he has used in the past. At the press conference following the film, some journalists gave him a hard time about this and asked about such use:
“With due respect I think this is nonsense talk,” he told the reporter at the press conference, “There’s this idea that truth is guaranteed by somehow the style of presentation, that if I run around with a handheld camera and I shoot with available light that is somehow more truthful.” Continuing, Morris noted, “Truth is a quest…something that I have never lost sight of and never will.” [Indiewire]
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Errol Morris is set to premiere his latest documentary, Standard Operating Procedure, at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival. Morris, best known for The Thin Blue Line, Mr. Death and 2003’s Academy Award Winning The Fog of War, is now taking on the abuse scandal at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. To tell the story Morris uses recovered footage, photographs and reenactments.
Morris, one of the true masters of documentary film, always does an amazing job telling a story without telling his audience what’s right and wrong. He simply tells you the facts, which often leave you in a murky gray area that’s anything but clear - much like life, especially when it comes to big political situations.
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