Standard Operating Procedure
It’s one of the great cliches in all of human existence- hindsight being 20/20. Everybody likely has one moment in their lives they look back on in regret, thinking about what they could’ve done differently, how things would have been better. But it can’t change the past- what happened happened. What’s been done has been done, and no amount of action from here on out can change that. All we can hope to do is learn from the past.
In “Standard Operating Procedure,” hindsight is the chief starring idea as director Errol Morris looks at the abuses and controversies at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Back in 2004, pictures got released showing prisoners in denigrating positions and American soldiers humiliating Iraqi prisoners, mostly naked, with the soldiers posing and smiling for the camera. The result was prison time for some of the chief offenders, and the Bush administration having to examine very publicly its’ use of torture tactics in the War on Terror, and verbally at least, being held accountable for such tactics, although apart from the few soldiers in the photos serving jail sentences, no one in the Administration itself has served prison time for the acts.
Few documentary filmmakers are “brand names” in the field. Beyond Michael Moore, the ranks are scarce. Morris’ name is arguably the highest profile, and almost unquestionably the most trusted in the field. Ever since his first film 30 years ago- the memorable and unusual “Gates of Heaven,” about a pet cemetery- Morris has focused his keen eye on a wide variety of subjects, from Nazi executionists (“Mr. Death”) to unusually gifted scientists (“Fast, Cheap and Out of Control”) to controversial politicians (in the Oscar-winning “Fog of War”) to suspicious murder cases (“The Thin Blue Line,” which posed its’ case so convincingly that the case was reopened and the convicted party was set free).
Here, Morris uses bold reenactments and images (a technique he used effectively in “Thin Blue Line”) and archived photos and video shot at the prison in concert with interviews with several of the military officers involved in the scandal- be it people who investigated the scandal or people like Lynndie England, whose face was the most prominent during the scandal after pictures of her with a leash around a prisoner’s neck or pointing to a prisoner’s genitals as they’re masturbating- hooded- got out. Their “testimony”- which is what it feels like when they’re in front of Morris’ camera, just as it did with former Secretary of Defense McNamara in “Fog of War”- is illuminating of the conditions we only got ideas about four years ago. Most striking is how many of the soldiers who were there claim to have not been involved in the actual torture, saying how they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. With nothing more to lose, we’re nonetheless torn in whether to believe them or not. It’s a credit to Morris’ objectivity that he allows us to answer that question for ourselves.
Morris does lead us as many other filmmakers do, however, by his choice of music. This time, he’s enlisted Danny Elfman- whose quirky sensibilities are more familiar to superhero movies and Tim Burton films than they are documentaries. But fans will no doubt see further growth in Elfman’s unique sound here, which feels lifted from the repertoire of Morris veteran Philip Glass but is unquestionably Elfman-esque at its’ core. After his summertime scoring of action nonsense in “Wanted” and fantasy heroics in “Hellboy II,” Elfman does some of his best work yet with his iconoclastic delving into minimalism here, which sometimes goes beyond the call of duty in overbearingness but nonetheless exerts a hold.
“Standard Operating Procedure” has a couple of particularly jarring moments in it. One is when an interviewee is recounting a visit Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld made to the prison; he wanted to see the torture rooms, but after only seeing one, decided he’d seen enough, and moved on. The other is near the end, where one of the investigators is speaking over a montage of many of the photographs, and explaining the difference between those which depict criminal behavior and those which are considered standard operating procedure. For someone who’s never been in that position- the line is a very thin one. And as seen in Morris’ film, one feels as though even “harmless” tactics may have crossed that line more often than not.
