The Wake

If you remember back to 2004, you might recall that a few photos leaked from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Humiliation, shock and embarrassment were felt nationwide as we looked on in horror, watching our American values destroyed by a few amateur digital photos. While we were busy trying to forget, Errol Morris was just starting to get his hands dirty, investigating and tracking down the elusive soldiers central to the controversy for his new documentary Standard Operating Procedure (which opens Friday May 23 at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema).

Oscar award-winning documentarian Errol Morris sits down with The Wake to discuss his new documentary on the photos from Abu Ghraib.

WAKE: You must be pretty passionate about the events at Abu Ghraib to have made a documentary like “Standard Operating Procedure.”

Errol Morris: Well, I think these people have been scapegoated…I can’t begin to tell you how many people have asked me questions: How come he doesn’t say he’s sorry, how come he doesn’t express remorse…I don’t think they express remorse because they’re really angry. They feel that they have been blamed for everything, that they have been framed, that they have been blamed for everything inappropriately and that their story is unknown. They’re angry.

WAKE: What was it about the Abu Ghraib photos that made you think, “This will make a great documentary,” or “I need to do something about this?”

EM: There’s the realization that these are the most famous war photographs of all time. It’s an amazing thing to say, but it’s true. [These are] photographs that everyone had seen, but very few people really understood or knew anything about. I don’t know why I thought it would make a good movie, I think it is a good movie - but I must be crazy.

WAKE: We all saw the photos plastered across our TVs, but what was your initial reaction to them?

EM: What in God’s name is this? They were so bizarre and perverse, but I didn’t have the thoughts that I have now… I wasn’t understanding the picture correctly…I didn’t really know what was going on. But I just remember everybody had opinions: left, right and center, about all of this with very little evidence to back it up.

WAKE: It seemed that there was a bipartisan taking the pictures as face value, whereas the right saw it as a few bad apples as it was portrayed in the media, and the left saw it as the fault of the higher-ups.

EM: And of course the common denominator, they’re both evil. There’s someone to blame in the story. One of the biggest and most unappetizing stories of this war is that …it becomes this war that is tolerated…I don’t even know what you’re supposed to do about it. It’s not like I have some magic answer, but I do know that it’s not a good thing just to pretend its not happening. Because it is happening, and it does involve young people, most of these people you see in the movie were destroyed by this…and I think the whole country has been damaged by it. We’ve gone mad, the things that supposedly are our deepest values have been put by the way side. I don’t remember this in Vietnam, and that was the war when I was coming of age. This will be your war…Endless posturing, lies, recycling one political opinion after another, very little research, very little journalism…I think that the White House created policies and pressures that made things like Abu Ghraib inevitable…I do believe that Bush should be impeached, that’s what we have impeachment for.

WAKE: Your son is 21 years old, and so also being around that age, I was wondering what his view on the film was?

EM: Well a lot of young people are just plain bored by all of it. I don’t know how better to describe it. Most people go to their news source- The Colbert Report, John Stewart. Because that is news, actually, it’s people saying something, and taking a position and thinking about stuff. There’s more there, more than I believe is ingenuous…than in any of the standard news shows, which I’ve stopped watching. I think it’s weird to be a young person in this country at the moment, I think it really is…I think young people might like this movie. I don’t know, what do I know?