Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris recently gave an interview with Entertainment Weekly about his latest work, Standard Operating Procedure, which examines the Abu Gharib prison scandal. It is his first documentary since 2003’s Oscar winning The Fog of War.
This is my favorite response from the interview, which you can read here.
Do you see Standard Operating Procedure as a political movie?
ERROL MORRIS: It’s not intended to be a political movie, but having said that, it would be hard for it not to be, at least in the sense that it’s about who we are, how we see ourselves. I have this old-fashioned American belief that it’s wrong to punish the little guys and to let the big guys get off scot-free. But it’s not a film that lectures to anybody about anything. It’s an attempt to take you into a strange world and an opportunity to think about it. In a way, I feel hopeless to address the war as a whole. I don’t know how to do that, even. I do know how to look at individual stories in the hopes that they tell us something about the nature of this war. People may not, ultimately, be outraged by torture, but I think people are outraged by a certain level of unfairness. I even have this theory Bush won the 2004 election because of the ”Bad Apples.”
When Morris releases a new documentary is a reason to get excited and believe me, I’m excited for this.
@Cinefille 