Donald Rumsfeld is now, as he was then, a frustrating person to talk to. In Errol Morris’ The Unknown Known, Rumsfeld – onetime Secretary of Defense – is placed in front of a camera as is asked, point blank by Morris, about some of his dubious or failed policies surrounding the Iraq invasion of 2003, including the so-called “torture memos” and “enhanced interrogation techniques” involved in prisons as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Rumsfeld, with the face of everyone’s arrogant uncle, points to his numerous memos – he wrote so many memos in the course of his career, colleagues began to refer to them as “snowflakes” – as evidence of how well he was handling things. He admits repeatedly that war is a messy thing, but with the slickness of an eel and the exacting skill of a career-long spinman, Rumsfeld refuses to admit any mistake or wrongdoing. Rumsfeld is either deep in denial about the failure of the Iraq invasion (this is the man who famously said “I don’t do quagmires”), or so insidiously skilled at giving things a positive spin, that he has no choice but to believe his own unique take on things.
Morris’ film is also a bit frustrating. Morris is one of the world’s best documentarians, and he has constantly offered a kind of gentle insight into his subjects. Morris typically celebrates outré and outsize personalities, allowing them to shine as individuals. In A Brief History of Time, he explored the astounding mind of Prof. Stephen Hawking. In Mr. Death, he allowed an execution machine designer named Fred Leuchter to speak for himself, even after he had begun tooling around with Holocaust deniers. In Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control (one of my favorites) he turned his eye on a quartet of men with strange professions (robots, lion taming, topiary, and mole rats!) and allowed their offbeat genius to shine.
The Unknown Known, however, marks the third film of what can now be called Morris’s War Cycle. While his previous War Cycle films have been simultaneously damning and insightful (they include Standard Operating Procedure, about the soldiers who committed the tortures at Abu Ghraib, and The Fog of War, about Robert McNamara), this one feels, well, less unbiased. While in his previous war films, Morris was clearly trying to make a point about the injustices of war and how wartime thinking can be labyrinthine and compromising, this time around, he clearly has a chip on his shoulder. Morris’ himself is very present in this film. His voice is the first we hear – this from a documentarian who has notoriously stayed largely absent from his movies; indeed, he is credited as one of the film’s stars. The questions he poses to Rumsfeld are openly baited, intended to make Rumsfeld shift about in his chair and perhaps admit to wrongdoing.
True, Rumsfeld engaged in the most insidious form of doublespeak this side of Orwell. During his tenure during the Iraq war, Rumsfeld did nothing but use clever semantics, re-wording, frustrating re-definition (he often cites The Pentagon Dictionary as his authoritative text), and outright evasion in order to deny culpability and stress that the war was working. His infamous snowflakes were nothing but a blizzard of misdirection. I can understand Morris’ need, then, to cut through all the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter; he, like us, just wants to know what Rumsfeld was really thinking beyond that sea of baffling known unknown knowns.
But Rumsfeld is not about to alter his viewpoints, and he’s certainly not going to say anything Morris clearly wants him to. So while Morris’ elegant meditative qualities are still intact (no one can meditate on film better than Errol Morris), and the film is still a fascinating view of history (a large portion of the film is dedicated to Rumsfeld’s growing political career and involvement in Vietnam), it pretty much boils down to two men with severely opposing political viewpoints badgering one another. When, near the end off the film, Morris finally asks Rumsfeld (and himself as well), “Why are you talking to me?” His purpose become clear.
Morris is a skilled filmmaker, and one of my favorites. I appreciate that he’s willing to explore such touchy political issues, and it’s kind of a relief to see that his politics kind of match my own (he is passionately anti-war). But when dealing with someone like Rumsfeld, perhaps he should have used a lighter touch, a more sympathetic eye, a more objective style.
Or perhaps that Morris was unable to stay objective only speaks to the power of Rumsfeld’s verbal manipulation. Perhaps Rumsfeld was the one baiting Morris. Perhaps Rumsfeld knew what he was doing this whole time. He wants to be known, but stay unknown.
Either way, this biased and combative and frustrating film is fascinating.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
