What Errol Morris is doing with STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE is more than a mere and mundane retelling of the abuses committed by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib. There is certainly that, but Morris, whose non-fiction features are as quirky as they are perceptive, goes beyond uncovering the whats and whens. He addresses the far more difficult question of why, and not just of what happened at Abu Ghraib, but of the tragic flaw within the human psyche that could allow this travesty to occur, spelling out in stark terms why such behavior is, as the title says, standard operating procedure.
The real topic is power, as in its seemingly inherent corrupting qualities. When coupled with a macho military culture where questioning authority is tantamount to asking for serious trouble, the power each individual exercised over others, from the grunts on up to the highest ranks is revealed as a situation where excesses and abuses are a foregone conclusion and exacerbated by a level of incompetence at the highest levels that is nothing short of breathtaking. He makes his case in ways that are as elegant as his visual style and just as unimpeachable.
The interviewees are a breathtaking mix. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the hamstrung commander of the 800th MP brigade, the one that included Abu Ghraib, looks straight into the camera with eyes the color of candor and a voice that rings with a potent, righteous indignation that only years of military discipline can keep under control as she recounts being told that no one locked up at Abu Ghraib should ever, under any circumstances, be released. At the other end of the military chain of command is Lynndie England, the private whose photos, including one taken of her holding a prisoner on a leash, got her into trouble. England sardonically noting that when she got to the stockade, every woman there was there because of a man, recounts what led to the photos, and, sure enough, it was her commanding officer and boyfriend, MP Cpl. Charles Graner, who insisted that she be in the shot. In between there are MPs and professional interrogators, and people who were bored one night and wandered into the wrong area of the cell block. Specialist Sabrina Harman’s letters home are used as the overall narrative. Her plain-spoken, sometime profane, amazement as she relates what she sees happening, her plan to take photos as evidence and turn them in when she gets home stand in dazzling contrast to Morris’ question to someone else at one point. It’s as though he can’t contain himself anymore just listening to the story he’s being told and wants to know if the speaker didn’t think what was happening was weird. Like everyone else, this person knew that what was going on was wrong, but didn’t object, didn’t report, didn’t refuse to take part. There is a pause of reflection before answering Morris’ question, and then the answer that it was just what had already been going on. Tim Dugan, a contract interrogator, on the other hand, can barely contain his anger at the system he found in place. Kids with no training attempting to get information from people three times their age and experience while outside Americans were dying because of the incompetence inside. He’s only slightly less bitter about finding those kids making out in interrogation rooms with the interogee looking on.
The metaphor Morris employs for his multiple points of view is lining up the photographs taken by those involved. Motives for being there, motives for taking the pictures, motives for doing what was done are many, but the shots speak for themselves, especially those showing other participants taking pictures of the same event. As someone puts it, it’s a moment of time that can’t be argued with. The damning nature of the action depicted speaks for itself, the backstory is another matter, and Morris gets to that with a startling depth and clarity.
Morris fills the screen with the photos themselves, without the mitigating pixilation of mainstream media, and he uses far more than the dozen or so use by that media. One photo in particular, of a prisoner tied up for control is couple to devastating effect with Harman’s narration where she says he looked like Jesus. There are also recreations, and imaginings surreal as the events, with ants as the spawn of hell, and military personnel who fade in and out. As always, Morris is the dispassionate interlocutor, rarely speaking, the camera trained on the subject in a close-up that is not tight enough to be intimate, but close enough to be slightly uncomfortable when it comes to personal boundaries.
By the end of STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, he’s extended that discomfort to the audience. No commissioned officer was convicted for the crimes at Abu Ghraib. Not all the pictures depicted an actual crime, some were, to use the phrase of the analyst involved, standard operating procedure for interrogation and control. That something so obviously twisted can be labeled acceptable is an emotional blow. But the careful recounting of the power structure that allowed this behavior to flourish is even moreso. There is no comfortable distancing oneself from the people on screen who are, in every sense, just like those in the audience watching them, and that idea is the one that should send shivers down our collective spines.
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