Oscar winning director Errol Morris, who made "The Thin Blue Line" and won the Academy Award for Best documentary feature in 2004 for "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara" has a new film titled, "Standard Operating Procedure," already a winner of the Silver Bear Award at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival.
US director Errol Morris poses for photos with his Silver Bear - The Jury Grand Prix at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, 16 February 2008. The 58th Berlinale Jury awarded the Silver Bear - The Jury Grand Prix for his documentary 'Standard Operating Procedure' on the incidents that happened at the Abu Ghraib prison. EPA/SOEREN STACHE
Morris' new film shows how a series of photographs changed the perspective on the unpopular war, and ultimately how it has changed America’s image of itself.
The film is about a group of young people sent to war, and how a small group of low ranking soldiers were blamed for policy decisions and a war out of control.
Abu Ghraib prison was a world in which almost no one was trained for the tasks they were asked to perform, where everyone knew what was going on, and where no one wanted to blow the whistle according to Morris. A world in which the rules were torn up, a world in which law was redefined as lawlessness.
Key photographs taken by soldiers in the 372nd MP Company – of a smiling Lynndie England posing with a prisoner on a leash; the Hooded Man standing on a box with wires attached to his fingers; and the pyramid of naked prisoners are used by Morris to demonstrate how they served as both an expose and a cover-up.
An expose, because the photographs offered us a glimpse of the horror of what was happening at Abu Ghraib; but cover-up because they seduced people into thinking what they saw was an aberration limited to a few rouge soldiers on the nightshift.
Morris' film explores the context of these photographs. The story of the photographs. Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? Everybody knew about the photographs but no one knew what the photographs were about.
Morris’ goal was to talk to the soldiers who took the photographs and who were in the photographs – to understand the photographs and the people who took them.
“My last film, 'The Fog of War,’ was about a person that was at the apex of power, Robert McNamara. With this new one, I wanted to make a film about the people at the bottom of the pyramid, 'the little guys.’ A story that I think the world needs to see and hear,” said Morris.
Morris used award winning cinematographers Robert Chappell & Robert Richardson, ASC to lens the feature, and the original music was scored by Danny Elfman, production design by Steve Hardie, and Andy Grieve, Daniel Mooney and Steven Hathaway were the film's editors.
Sony Pictures Classics will open the film in select U.S. cities on April 25th and nationally throughout May. In addition, a book by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris will be published by Penguin with the release of the film later this Spring.
Espresso911Mar 10th, 2008 - 07:24:21
How can you know what was happening at the prison?
I was there(03 to 04). We struggled so hard with so little to do the right thing and still accomplish the mission. Why not tell stories about the MP's that were carried out during the riot, blood pouring out of there ears from being hit with rocks thrown by prisoners? Why not talk about the Iraqi Prison Guards ( our allies? )that smuggled a gun into a prisoner who shot an MP? About the plan, foiled at the last moment, to smuggle in hand gernades to the prisoners? About the mortars and rockets that landed so often within the compounds killing Americans and Iraqis.
We worked so hard to bring sanity to an insane situation.
If you were'nt there you could never understand.
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