Standard Operating Procedure

so Errol Morris, the Oscar winning director of The Fog of War, has a new movie that was released April 25^th and I can't go see it because I'm in the wrong country. It’s called Standard Operating Procedure, a documentary about the people who made the Abu Ghraib photographs and how they came to light. He’s also written a book on the subject with Philip Gourevitch, the author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

I really enjoyed going to see The Fog of War with my father when it came out, and I'm hoping this will me more of the same intense confrontation with reality. Morris has a unique approach to difficult subject matter, he said on the Salon.com podcast : "I don't see it as my job to get people to say they’re sorry. I don’t want to hear your confession, I don’t want to hear you apologize... I just want you to tell me your story!" I have a lot of respect for someone who attacks a problem without seeking to lay blame or exonerate.

As for the other half of this pair, I finally finished Gourevitch's book about Rwanda last summer and it was one of the most heartbreakingly bleak books I've ever read. And I'm really glad I read it. It was a gripping, well written account of an incredible tragedy. It's hard to face the darkest parts of who we are as human beings sometimes, and I'm thankful that we have people like him to help us try to understand.

Oh and did I mention that Danny Elfman composed the score? One of the things that made Fog of War so intense was the relentless score by Philip Glass, a mad genius of noise/sound composing. I don't really know how to describe his work, go check out his site. but embarrassingly enough, I've loved Danny Elfman since his Oingo Boingo days and I've been consistently impressed by his work in film, and I can't wait to see this movie.

Unfortunately, my geographical location makes it somewhat improbable that I'll be seeing it any time soon. In the meantime I'm going to be reading Morris and Gourevitch's recent New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib, that my brother recommends. But I don't have time to tonight because I have to learn il congiuntivo and I'm going to Brussels for the weekend. Ciao!