Your instinct will tell you that Rumsfeld reveals nothing in this film. Criminal lawyers won't find any previously undisclosed testimony (or even evidential leads) for Hague prosecutions. For journalists, there are no obvious new headlines. But for criminologists (like myself and my colleagues at ISCI), the curious, and students of society, his performance is illuminating. Morris laments (at an ICA Q&A - 19th March 2014) the torturous process of interviewing this vacuous, irony free memo-maniac: "there's just nothing there!" But - to paraphrase Don - the presence of nothing does not mean everything is absent. The filmmakers expertly splice in documents and images to portray a relentless parade of dangerous and shady characters. Nixon, Ford, Regan, Kissinger, The Bushes and a diabolical pair who weaved in and out of successive administrations as if riding a macabre carousel: Rumsfeld and his trusty "assistant" Cheney. Thanks to Rumsfeld's predilection for recording and typing up his entire thought process, many converted to and sent as typed memos (available here: http://papers.rumsfeld.com/), Morris had the ammunition to potentially destroy Rumsfeld's self-constructed world. But he doesn't. Instead he allows us to observe Rumsfeld in his natural state, and in all it's frightening glory. Fog of War it is not. It is fine cinema. Ask yourself while you watch it: is Rumsfeld clever clever, or stupid clever? Or clever stupid?
Review of The Unknown Known
The Unknown Known
(2013)
Morris expertly reveals a glimpse of nothing
27 March 2014
Warning: Spoilers