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Errol Morris directs 'Standard Operating Procedure'

BY JOSEPH V. AMODIO | Special to Newsday

April 20, 2008

The list of those he has interviewed reads like roll call on the Island of Misfit Toys. Serial killers, pet cemetery workers, an electric chair repairman (who just happens to be a Holocaust denier), cosmologist Stephen Hawking, Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara, and many, many more. If you've ever been misjudged, prejudged, scapegoated or just plain weird, filmmaker Errol Morris would like a word.

"There's some kind of joy in thinking you've found something other people haven't noticed," says Morris, at Manhattan's Regency Hotel. "There's something interesting about extending sympathy where no one else has extended sympathy before."

Morris, 60, a Hewlett native now living outside Boston with his wife and son, debuted with "Gates of Heaven," his 1980 film about pet cemeteries. Other films followed, including 1988's "The Thin Blue Line," his acclaimed analysis of a Texas policeman's murder (in which he focused attention on overlooked evidence that eventually freed an innocent man from prison), and "The Fog of War," his 2002 profile of McNamara (which earned Morris a best documentary Academy Award).

But his latest effort, "Standard Operating Procedure," may be his toughest sell yet. The film, which opens Friday, takes on Abu Ghraib, letting soldiers from the infamous prison tell their stories in their own words, with re-enactments of some brutal events interspersed throughout, shot in a hazy, strangely beautiful way.

And then there are the photographs - some 250.

"I could've shown a lot more," he says. "I didn't like the idea of riffling through them - I like that you see each one."

The subjects look straight into the camera, shot with Morris' "Interrotron," a camera rigged with a TelePrompTer screen in front. Interviewees see Morris' head projected on screen, and not the lens hidden behind. Morris is recorded sitting across the room in a curtained booth, speaking into a microphone.

"It's very 'Wizard of Oz,'" says producer Julie Bilson Ahlberg, who has worked with him on films and commercials, from Adidas to Miller beer. "He's the best listener I've ever met," Ahlberg observes. "It's the only place he shows patience."

Morris conducted 30-plus interviews, amassing a million and a half words of transcript. Of it all, the most intriguing figure is that of Lynndie England, the Iraq war poster child for bad behavior. Where's her cocksure smile and howdy-do thumbs-up? Here, she is humble, earnest, vulnerable, lame - and almost unrecognizable, her mousy brown hair grown out, eyelids heavy, speaking slowly like some weary salesgirl in a customized T-shirt booth at the mall.

"Despite my pessimism, I actually believe in this country," Morris says. "But I find the last five years immensely depressing. And at the heart of it is this question: How am I involved in all this?

"I have a thousand outs," he continues. "I can say I didn't vote for Bush, that I disliked these policies. But can I simply say it has nothing to do with me?"

The film is not, he emphasizes, politically motivated. "It's an attempt to look at people who have been otherwise ... unseen," he says. "It's pulling them back away from the world of ... monsterhood ... into the world of people like you and me. And I think that's important."

A losing battle for box office

It's a fact - most movies about Iraq and the war on terror hit theaters, in some cases garner rave reviews, then fall flat. Recent box-office blahs include "In the Valley of Elah" (starring Tommy Lee Jones), "Grace Is Gone" ( John Cusack), "Rendition" ( Reese Witherspoon) and "Lions for Lambs" ( Robert Redford, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep).

"I'll go door to door if I have to," says Phil Donahue, who co-directed "Body of War," a sobering look at one soldier's tough adjustment to life stateside, after being shot and paralyzed while serving in Iraq.

"Body of War," which opened earlier this month, and Errol Morris' "Standard Operating Procedure" are two of five new war-related films looking to break the pattern.

Bad sign: "Stop-Loss," the first of this batch, is limping along despite sexy-young-thing stars (like Ryan Phillippe). The drama collected about $9 million in its first two weeks, according to Box Office Mojo. (The football comedy "Leatherheads" scored nearly $13 million in just its first weekend.)

"I saw 'Stop-Loss' in Farmingdale at 7 p.m. - there were four people in the theater," says Charlotte Sky, co-director of the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington. "I wish I could tie people to a seat sometimes."

Perhaps the comedies "Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?" (which opened Friday) and "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" (opening Friday) will fare better than the more sober-minded films.

Selling political films "seems more difficult today," Donahue says. "Dissenters are viewed as scolds," he says. "People for peace are wimpy, singing 'Kumbaya.'"

Still, Sky remains optimistic. Next month, her theater is showing documentary Oscar winner "Taxi to the Dark Side," which examines America's use of torture. "For 35 years fans have thanked us for showing films that introduced them to people and places they'd never have heard about otherwise," she says. "That makes up for the other times the people don't show up." - Joseph V. Amodio