Standard Operating Procedure (2008)

Director:

Errol Morris

Release Date:

29 May 2008 (Germany)

Genre:

Documentary | War

Tagline:

The War on Terror will be photographed

Plot:

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison. |

Plot Keywords:

Childishness | Military Police | American Officer | Detainee | Dying During Interrogation

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

US Showtimes:

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Cast

Christopher Bradley	...	MP Frost
Sarah Denning	...	M.P. Harman
Joshua Feinman	...	MP Elliot
Jeff L. Green	...	M.P. Catthcart
Merry Grissom	...	Interrogator
Roy Halo	...	Gus
Cyrus King	...	M.P. Berryhill
Daniel Novy	...	Frederick
Zhubin Rahbar	...	Manadel al-Jamadi
Shaun Russell	...	Military Intelligence
Combiz Shams	...	Iraqi Detainee

Also Known As:

S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure (USA) (working title)
Untitled Errol Morris/Abu Ghraib Project (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for disturbing images and content involving torture and graphic nudity, and for language.

Runtime:

Germany:118 min (Berlin International Film Festival)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A (British Columbia/Ontario) | USA:R

Company:

Participant Productions

Trivia:

First documentary ever to be nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival (2008).

Very flawed documentary

Errol Morris's new documentary "Standard Operating Procedure" attempts to challenge the very medium of photography and bring to light the injustices at Abu Ghraib. The film somewhat succeeds in the first respect but fumbles its way through the second. Documentaries are inherently subjective and set out to portray a certain angle; that being said what Director Errol Morris says are his intentions and what appears on the screen are two totally different things. The film stumbles through the events at Abu Ghraib but fails to retain any real emotion, fluidity or energy throughout the work.

Let's look at the good first. Errol Morris takes an interesting stance by constantly asking the viewers "What's outside the frame?" In a sense he's questioning the very medium he is using. This questioned is answered somewhat through testimonies but also quite literally by showing viewers photographs before they were cropped, such as the infamous leach photograph. Errol using some interesting techniques, most noticeably the use of the interotron. The interotron is a screen, similar to a TelePrompTer, that allows the interviewee to look directly into the camera, allowing for a more genuine first person feel to the film.

However, for everything Errol Morris does right, there are a myriad of things done wrong here. While the cinematography of the film interviews via the interotron is interesting, the editing that pieces it together is awful. The film will cut different angles of the same person talking with gaps of black transition that last for almost two seconds. These pauses of black beg you to question "Is the film over?" which is always no. The film clocks in at 117 minutes, but it might as well be four hours long, because that's what it feels like. You can only watch people talk at you for so long. Morris attempts to spice up the picture by using grainy, melodramatic, slow motion sequences that serve little purpose other than to pad an already long film's running time and to flesh out images of his imagination in an attempt to sway the audience to his kind of thinking.

Errol Morris has stated on several occasions that "Standard Operating Procedure" is not a political film. It sure feels like one. Morris paints himself as a detective, similarly to the way he did in "The Thin Blue Line", attempting to bring those truly responsible to justice. Those in the picture are responsible, but he wants to go after those higher up, who ordered the interrogation techniques and knew what was going on. The film merely graces that aspect, pointing a broad finger towards higher command and Bush administration. instead, the film indulges in the American atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib, while sympathizing with those who were jailed. Morris also blatantly hints towards the fact that every cell block in every prison in Iraq is performing this sort of torture to this degree. Why no photographs of any other cell block have not leaked, you can decide.

"Standard Operating Procedure" is a failed documentary in that it attempts to be investigative but is so subjective in it's material that it just comes off as a fumbling clump of information. Nothing is truly resolved and more questions are asked than answered. It does give slightly more insight to the happenings at Abu Ghraib, but at almost two hours, S.O.P. is self aggrandizing and indulgent. Morris's political beliefs cloud his objectivity; the way he paints it, President Bush and Rumsfeld were fully aware from the beginning and actively trying to cover it up. Why would Morris take this approach? Because large government conspiracies are a whole lot more interesting than isolated incidents. In the end, there isn't a whole lot of reporting going on here as much as speculating.