It is not exactly a companion piece to The Fog of War, Morris' documentary on former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara who oversaw the escalation of American involvement in Vietnam. Like that 2003 documentary, Morris engages with a former Secretary of Defense, discussing a foreign war that was launched and (mis)managed under his watch and the indefensible misconduct and scandals involving American soldiers and officer. Where is differs is the response of the subject: MacNamara, with the --- of hindsight and history and the thoughtfulness of a statesman more interested in truth than a personal agenda, admitted not just to his mistakes but to the damage the war wrought on American lives (and, of course, Vietnamese lives, though the focus is one the American legacy). A longtime politician who entered politics as a congressman elected in 1962 and served in the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush (George H. W. Bush did not trust him), Rumsfeld is a storyteller who makes his case with a gentle matter-of-factness backed by an unforced authority and genial ease, whether talking to reporters during the war or talking to camera in the interviews conducted for the film. The smile, with those half-moon eyes suggesting a grandfatherly affection backed by experience and cocksure authority, is a defining image in the film.
Errol Morris is one of the most inventive and engaging non-fiction filmmakers in the world today. He brings a strong visual presentation to pull audiences in to his films while building his case on excellent research and choice archival materials. While The Unknown Known features video clips and archival images to fill in Rumsfeld's past, however, it is his talent as an interviewer and interrogator, honed over decades of filmmaking, that gives the film its dramatic center. The film is built on hours of one-on-one interviews between filmmaker and subject, with Rumsfeld speaking directly to the camera. It's a signature of Morris' films thanks to his own invention, the Interrotron. Basically, it uses mirrors in front of the camera a way that allows interviewer and subject to engage each other directly while the subject is in looking directly into the lens. It provides an intimacy with the interview during shooting and during viewing.
Morris himself was surprised that Rumsfeld agreed to sit down for a series of interviews for this production, given his politics and his history. Watching Rumsfeld respond to Morris' questioning, you can make your own guess as to why he did. Morris is no crusading journalist hammering his subject in a debate and his approach as an interviewer is not confrontational. He engages Rumsfeld on the issues, pressing him but not challenging him. Rumsfeld responds with smiling assurance that never wavers as he repeats the same justifications and excuses he made a decade ago, despite the evidence that has come to light in the years since. And as Morris uses silence as a way to give Rumsfeld the opportunity to continue, to elaborate, to reconsider, Rumsfeld treats it as a game of chicken, simply smiling silently back at the camera until Morris continues. The kind of revelations that MacNamara offered are nowhere to be seen in Rumsfeld, whose purpose seems to be solely to explain and sustain his legacy as he sees it. It's a contest for him, a struggle over who will define his story, like a one-on-one version of the press conferences that made Rumsfeld a media star of sorts in the early 2000s.
With Rumsfeld constantly obfuscating and sidestepping issues (he calls the abuses at Abu Ghraib exaggerated and denies waterboarding was ever sanctioned), the most interesting parts of the film involve Rumsfeld reading from the hundreds of thousands of memos he wrote during his government service. He called them "snowflakes" and takes pride in them, and true to form, when confronted with a memo that contradicts his own stated position, he sets about reinterpreting it for the camera. With Morris unable to get Rumsfeld to reconsider anything in his legacy, these contradictions are the closest we have to challenging his record. You don't get the dramatic jolt or profound sense of struggle between truth and power that define previous Morris documentaries, from The Thin Blue Line (1988) to Standard Operating Procedure (2008). Rather, you get a glimpse at power protecting itself, at discredited talking points continually presented as fact, at politics as a game of shaping and controlling the message in face of any evidence to the contrary. Discussing Tariq Aziz, the Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Rumsfeld calls him "A perfectly rational individual. You wonder what goes on in a mind like that." I have that same reaction at the end of The Unknown Known. There is no doubt that Rumsfeld is both a smart, savvy political players and a polished media creature. But for all the easy-going pose of humility, he isn't the least bit humble, and he is not about to let any self-reflection complicate or contradict the legacy he has so carefully built and maintained.
On Blu-ray and DVD, with a strong picture, thanks to Morris' austere style (a single subject set against a dark background) and digital photography. The archival footage shows its age, of course, but the interview scenes and graphics are vivid and bold and look superb on the discs. Both feature commentary by filmmaker Errol Morris and a short interview with Morris discussing the genesis and the production of the documentary. Also features the 57-minute archival presentation "Third Annual Report of the Secretaries of Defense," an hour-long recording of a conference from 1989 featuring Rumsfeld, Robert McNamara and Caspar Weinberger, and the text of Morris' four-part New York Times op-ed piece "The Certainty of Donald Rumsfeld."
By Sean Axmaker
