FILM REVIEW: THE UNKNOWN KNOWN

Donald Rumsfeld in The Unknown Known. 

Spin Rummy

By Ed Rampell

Along with Michael Moore, Errol Morris is arguably America’s preeminent documentarian. Morris’ recent nonfiction films include 2003’s Academy Award winning, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara and 2008’s Berlin International Film Festival Jury Grand Prize winner, Standard Operating Procedure. 

The former sought to explain why America went “down the same rabbit hole again” (as Morris put it during his Oscar acceptance speech) by invading Iraq through an investigation of the so-called “Mac the Knife,” who was U.S. Secretary of Defense during much of the Vietnam War. The second doc examined torture committed by Americans at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Morris’ latest documentary, The Unknown Known, is a sort of cinematic synthesis and updating of the two, as the master moviemaker focuses his “Interrotron” on Donald Rumsfeld, the man who was Defense Secretary during the Iraq War and is suspected of sharing responsibility for torturing prisoners from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo. The Interrotron is a recording device somewhat similar to a teleprompter that enables the interview subject to appear to be making direct eye contact with the interviewer, and hence with the audience. The term, which was coined by Morris’ wife, producer Julia Sheehan, enhances the “first person” and “fly on the wall” nature of Q&As while suggesting the words “interrogation,” “interview” and -- appropriately, in Rumsfeld’s case -- “terror.”

The Unknown Known follows Rumsfeld, the Don Corleone of elite Republican politics, through his career as a four-term Congressman in the 1960s to his stints as a behind-the-scenes strings puller in the administrations of presidents Nixon and Ford, serving the latter as America’s youngest Secretary of Defense. The documentary focuses on Rumsfeld’s return to that post (by then as America’s oldest Defense Secretary) during George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency at the behest of his longtime crony, Dick Cheney. In this doc “The Unknown” becomes “Known” largely through the 20,000 memos the verbose Rumsfeld -- a psychopathic egotist way too fond of hearing the sound of his own voice -- circulated during his six years as Bush’s Pentagon hit man. Building upon what the ex-Defense Secretary dubs “snowflakes,” Morris once again goes down the rabbit hole as he follows Rumsfeld’s arrogant paper trail and creates one of the documentary’s central cinematic metaphors.

Morris is at his best when he uses filmmaking’s audio-visual language to express ideas and break the tedium of talking heads on the big screen. In 1988’s The Thin Blue Line about a Texan wrongfully convicted of murder Morris memorably, inventively enlivened the action with a slow motion crime scene reenactment featuring a flying milkshake, which provided a vital clue for the case. In The Unknown Known Morris cinematically opens up the screen with beautiful black and white time lapse cinematography of Washington, D.C. and repeatedly uses the snowflake theme to make his case against Rumsfeld and his snow job, as Rummy reads many of his memos aloud. At one point Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” plays on the soundtrack. Another visual metaphor Morris deploys is images of the ocean, perhaps to give form to the gabby Rumsfeld’s sea of words.

Morris’ cleverest use of cinematic symbolism, however, is aural, as he overlays one track of Rumsfeld speaking over another, thereby creating the impression that the Pentagon top banana was, literally, a double talker. For instance, to sidestep the Geneva Conventions Rumsfeld refers to “detainees” instead of “prisoners of war.” Morris includes a canny clip of the 2002 press conference wherein Rumsfeld rather infamously said this about the lack of hard evidence regarding Iraq’s purported WMDs: “There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns: that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.” The title of Morris’ film is derived from this convoluted quote, which is clearly classic Orwellian “doublespeak.” (The doc’s droll, tongue in cheeky tagline is: “What you didn’t know you didn’t know.”)

At other times Morris cannily cuts from a lie Rumsfeld tells the Interrotron to footage of a previous statement by him, in order to point out self-serving contradictions. Sometimes Rummy spars with his electronic interrogator, taking issue with Morris’ use of the word “obsession” to describe his fixation on Iraq, retorting: “You like the word ‘obsession.’” At other times Rumsfeld critics may feel that the interrogator isn’t as hard hitting as he could be with the elusive subject -- Morris’ disdain for his subject has actually been far more visceral and palpable in the interviews he has given since completing his doc.

For instance, Rumsfeld’s meeting with Saddam Hussein on Dec. 20, 1983 as the Reagan regime’s special envoy to Western Asia is revisited, but Morris doesn’t press Rummy on his shaking hands and dickering with the dictator who was at the time using chemical weapons against Kurds and Iranians -- while the Bush regime used Iraq’s purported Weapons of Mass Destruction and Baghdad’s prior use of WMDs as a pretext for war. Rumsfeld, who was among the top purveyors of disinformation about Saddam’s WMDs, is predictably weasel-y when confronted about his lies regarding this matter (as he is regarding U.S. torture). When Rumsfeld ruminates upon Tariq Aziz, expressing a desire to meet with Saddam’s former Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Morris inserts an image of written words dropping into a black pit.

Discussing Gitmo, Bagram and whether or not it was better for the U.S. to have not invaded Iraq Rumsfeld tellingly says “Time will tell,” justifying Bush administration actions by pointing out that under Pres. Obama many Bush policies are “all still there.”

Rumsfeld jokingly calls his interrogator’s final question “vicious,” as Morris inquires: “Why are you talking to me?” Rumsfeld replies: “I’ll be damned if I know.” This reviewer suspects that in addition to trying to burnish his image and put his spin on history, a main reason why Rumsfeld agreed to be interviewed for The Unknown Known is in order to sell copies of his latest book. And to once again have the pleasure of hearing the sound of his own voice, as this would-be master of the universe discussed for 33 hours his favorite topic: Donald Rumsfeld.

In any case, a better question for this man who helped lead this country into a completely unnecessary war that led to the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands and an incalculable loss of tax dollars contributing to the bankrupting of America is: Why are you smiling? Throughout the documentary Rumsfeld is jocular, even gleeful -- he is seen grinning in Participant Media’s picture promoting the film at the socially aware production company’s website. Inquiring minds would like to know why?

This reviewer suspects that Donald Rumsfeld is happy because he was never charged with, let alone convicted of, committing war crimes, and walks around a free, very rich man. Let’s hope Rumsfeld is charged with crimes against humanity and brought before a 21^st century Nuremberg tribunal -- and that smirk is forever wiped off of his face. The reason why Rumsfeld and his fellow war criminals are allowed to walk around free is an unknown known.