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>> Welcome to University Place.
I'm Norman Gilliland.
Roger Ebert has said of my
guest today, "After 20 years
of reviewing films, I haven't
found another filmmaker
who intrigues me more.
Errol Morris is like a magician,
and is great a filmmaker
as Hitchcock or Fellini."
And "The Guardian" recently put
him in its top ten list of the
world's great directors.
However you react to his films,
I think you'll find that he
makes the strange familiar,
and the familiar strange.
And we'll find out how he works
some of his magic by sampling
some of his films later, and
finding out where his mind takes
us into dialogue.
Welcome to University Place.
>> Thanks for having me here.
>> A pleasure to have you.
Your earliest days getting
inspired to create films.
Were documentary filmmakers as
much of an influence for you on
inspiration as theatrical films?
Or, where did it come from?
>> It started with drama,
theatrical films.
I'm still obsessed with them.
That really hasn't changed over
the years.
Madison, Wisconsin, because
Madison has one of the
extraordinary film archives
in the world.
>> It certainly has.
>> And I started to watch films.
I was a student here in the late
'60s.
I came back in the early '70s.
Much of what I do, including
making films, comes out of this
place.
It comes out of being here in
Wisconsin.
>> Of course, there is the
project that I guess you didn't
finish, that had you living in
Plainfield for a year or more.
>> That's correct.
>> Maybe we'll touch on that a
little bit later, too.
But other than the rather
macabre story of Ed Gein in
Plainfield, what was...
>> Just one small correction.
People never know how to
pronounce his name.
They think because it's Gein,
G-E-I-N, that it's German.
The name actually was shortened
from the Scottish.
It was McGein originally.
The correct pronunciation
is with the long "E".
>> Ed Gein.
>> Ed Gein, yes indeed.
>> I'll trust you on that.
Anybody who spent a year
researching him, and I guess no
pun intended, digging up some
new information, would be an
expert.
You must be one of the world
authorities on Ed Gein.
>> Maybe I am.
>> How do you feel about
investing so much of your time
in a project that didn't turn
into a film in the long run?
>> Not an unfamiliar experience.
Most of the projects I have,
really didn't become films.
And for years, I wasn't writing.
I am now writing.
I write regularly
for the "New York Times."
I have a book coming out from
Penguin early next year.
And I will write something
about my experiences in
Plainfield, Wisconsin.
Maybe it's 30 years after the
fact, but I will write about it.
>> There's something to be said
for 30 years of perspective on a
project.
>> I still have wanted to make,
not a documentary film, but
theatrical film about Ed Gein.
And the title--
>> Wasn't it called "Psycho"?
Wasn't that inspired by Ed Gein?
>> "Psycho" was inspired
by Ed Gein.
It was written by Robert Bloch,
who lived in Weyaugega,
Wisconsin, at the time these
murders received international
attention.
And "Psycho" is a truly great
movie.
It's one Hitchcock's greatest
movies.
My Ed Gein story is a somewhat
different story, inspired by my
own experiences with the case.
>> One of the experiences you
had, and I gather nobody else
gleaned this from the
circumstances, was the circular
pattern of his exhuming people
in the cemetery, and the
significance of it.
>> I can't quite call myself a
frequent visitor to the
Plainfield Cemetery, but yes,
I was there many, many times.
Ed Gein was principally,
a grave robber, not a murderer.
He'd read the obituaries, and he
would exhume from various
graves, women who looked
a little bit like mom,
middle aged heavy-set.
And I became obsessed, the story
of my life, I became obsessed
with so many of the details of
the Gein case, including the
location of all the graves.
>> And nobody else, as they say,
had broken this ground before?
>> Broken this ground?
No, I don't believe so.
>> So, that's still waiting for
you to describe that process in
book form you say, probably, or
film?
>> Or in film.
I have a script called "Digging
Up The Past," which is taken
from Gein's defense attorneys.
They had to provide an oral
argument at the end of the case.
Exactly really what do you say?
I believe it's hard to know,
because I'm just reading words
on a page.
I believe that the defense
attorneys were somewhat nervous
about what they were going to
say.
And without any trace of irony,
they argued there's no reason to
force this man to dig up the
past, after all don't we all
have skeletons in our closet?
Yes, but usually not literally.
( both laugh )
>> Well, you know, speaking of
people who are a little nervous
about what they're going to say,
you seem to have this wizardry
when it come to getting people
on camera to reveal themselves.
And sometimes the effect might
be considered comic to the
viewer, and sometimes tragic.
And sometimes this person is
somebody we might call a small
person, or an unknown private
person, and sometimes
it's a very public person.
How did you go about getting
somebody, in those early films,
for starters, to reveal so much
of themselves in something like
"Vernon, Florida,"
or the "Gates of Heaven"?
>> I don't know.
It's an art form.
Psychiatrists talk about
transference, but that may just
beg the question, because after
all, what is transference?
Everybody has the experience of
people they enjoy talking to,
and people they don't enjoy
talking to, people that they
would rather avoid altogether
if possible.
I really like interviewing.
There's something magical
about it.
I'll sometimes describe it as
human relationships in this very
odd laboratory setting.
For example, the two of us
sitting here today.
I developed my technique of
interviewing before I became a
filmmaker.
In fact, I developed it--
Where did I develop it?
I developed it in Wisconsin.
Does everything come from this
state?
>> That'd be alright.
So, if not for film, what medium
did you use for interviews?
>> A cassette tape.
I would walk into a room with my
cassette tape recorders, and I
would put the tape recorder down
on the table.
The tape recorder was already
running.
I didn't like the idea of asking
permission to record, because it
always gave--
>> It put them on guard.
>> It gave somebody the
opportunity to say no.
It put them on guard.
So, I would put the tape
recorder down in clear view.
It wasn't as if I was
surreptitiously recording.
Everybody could see the tape
recorder, and knew presumably,
that I was recording.
And then I had a game
that I played with myself.
How can I encourage people
to talk at enormous length
without interrupting them?
How can I encourage them just to
go on and on and on.
>> Look at Frederick Wiseman and
his documentaries.
>> Fred has a different
technique, which is something
that fascinates me.
I've always wanted to make
a cinéma vérité documentary
ŕ la Fred Wiseman.
He is the proverbial fly on the
wall, in the sense that he will
go into some situation, people
will be talking, and he will
observe that conversation.
I'm almost the flip side of
Wiseman, in the sense that my
art depends on people talking
directly to camera,
directly to me and to camera.
Sometimes I may be a fly on the
wall, but it's a 600-pound fly
on the wall.
I'm far from being unobtrusive.
I'm very much present.
>> And how do you decide?
In films, I mean, you're very
sparing with it, as far as I can
tell, but how do you decide when
to leave your voice, albeit
off-camera, in one of your
films?
>> I've been doing more and more
of it.
My most recent film, "Tabloid,"
has my voice all over the place.
It's a central part of the
movie.
I don't know, maybe I feel more
comfortable with myself.
>> Did you do that,
I'm trying to remember,
in "The Thin Blue Line," at all?
>> No, except for the very end
of the movie.
I had what I thought was
a disaster.
Here's a movie where I spent
three years investigating
a murder in Texas,
and a man who I believe had been
falsely accused of this murder.
He's sentenced to death for the
murder of a Dallas police
officer in 1977.
I had waited three years to
interview the man who I believed
was the killer, the real killer.
And I started the interview
on a Friday night.
And my cameras broke.
It's like a joke.
>> That's the worst case
scenario, isn't it?
>> It's presumably a filmmaker's
worst nightmare.
And I thought, this can't really
be happening.
This is absurd.
It's just all too horrible.
I came back the following day
with a tape recorder.
I tape recorded this final
interview, which is at the end.
>> And it's very effective, too.
It's because it's such a change
of pace.
>> And of course, my voice is
all over it.
It's me and the killer.
The killer essentially
confessing to this murder.
I pursued him for three years.
It's strange.
The fact that it's not on film
at the end of the film, the fact
that it's this disembodied voice
from a tape recorder, which you
see on the screen.
It gives it a power that it
might not otherwise have.
I can't quite say
that I lucked out.
But what I thought was a
disaster turned out to be
actually nothing of the sort.
Let's look at what might be
called, if there is such a term,
a more conventional Errol Morris
part of this film,
"The Thin Blue Line.".
There's just little David
Harris, and nobody believes him.
And so, we were very optimistic
about his chances, until
we walked into the court room,
and here were all these people
standing in front of the bench,
three of them, anyway.
They were taking the oath
to be sworn as witnesses.
Mrs. Miller got on the stand
that last afternoon.
And she said, "That's the man!
I saw that man!
I saw Randall Adams' face,
just right after..."
She said, "I saw the gun
sticking out of the car when
he shot that police officer,"
and "That's the man!"
And she waved her finger
right toward Randall Adams.
She's the one
that got him convicted.
>> When I was a kid, I wanted
to be a detective all the time,
because I used to watch
all the detective shows on TV.
When I was a kid,
they used to show these
movies with Boston Blackie.
He always had a woman with him.
I wanted to be the wife
of a detective,
or be a detective,
so I always watched
detective stories.
I'm always lookin', because I
never know, you know, what might
come up, or how I can help.
I like to help in situations
like that.
I really do.
Even though it's always
happening to me, everywhere
I go, you know, lots of times,
there's killings, or anything,
you know, even around my house,
wherever.
And I'm always lookin',
or getting involved, you know,
finding out who did it,
or what's goin' on.
I listen to people.
And I'm always trying to decide
who's lying and who killed who,
before the police do,
to see if I can beat 'em.
Yeah.
is a spectacular clip. I mean, it gives us a pretty
cross section, I guess I would
say, of "The Thin Blue Line."
>> Yes.
>> And so, what we have, is we
have two women speaking, one of
whom is the attorney for Adams?
>> Yes.
>> And what she is saying
is pretty understandable.
She's emphatic about it.
But the other one is remarkable.
She's in effect revealing
that she just wanted to please
the police in this
investigation, and kind of
wanted to be sort of important,
like she was in
a "Boston Blackie" episode,
or something.
>> Absolutely.
>> And none of this came out
before, though?
I mean, leading up to the trial
for the defendant,
for the man who was accused,
and actually convicted.
>> No, not at all.
I stumbled on this case
by accident.
Adams had come within three days
of being electrocuted,
and was saved
by a Supreme Court Justice.
Really, it had nothing to do
with the case whatsoever.
It was a technicality involving
jury selection.
Today, with the present Supreme
Court, my guess is that he would
have been killed in the Texas
electric chair.
And I can tell you with
very close to certainty,
he didn't do it.
>> That seems to be pretty
clearly what Harris is saying in
that clip, the audio interview.
>> Harris eventually was
executed for another crime.
And I spoke to him the day of
his execution.
And he, once again reiterated
that Adams had had nothing
whatsoever to do with the
murder, that he was the person
responsible.
It's a true--
And you don't find
that it's so clear cut in life.
>> Very often.
>> Black and white.
But this case, yes.
This was a clear and terrible
miscarriage of justice.
>> How grateful was Adams for
you getting him off?
I gather, not terribly,
at least on the face of it.
>> He sued me.
And if that's a sign of
gratitude, it's not a
traditional sign of gratitude.
>> And on what basis did he sue
you?
>> On the basis that he wanted
money, that he had signed a
release, he was unhappy with
that fact.
It was an absurd conclusion
to a very difficult project.
I am very proud of what I did.
And the fact that I actually
overturned a murder conviction
in Texas, maybe I achieved
something close to the
impossible.
My wife described it quite
accurately by saying, just
because he's a victim doesn't
mean he isn't an [###].
And I think that is really the
essence of it.
Do I believe that he is
innocent?
Yes, I do.
Do I believe he acted really
badly when he got out of prison.
Yes, I do.
>> But was he worthy of
execution?
No.
>> Of course not.
He wasn't worthy of being in
prison for a single day,
let alone execution.
There's so many odd ironies with
this story.
There's a Dallas psychiatrist
who's involved, nicknamed
Dr. Death, who would make
predictions about future
behavior.
What you or I will do, say,
six months from now,
a year from now.
I don't believe psychiatrists
can predict human behavior.
>> That's been demonstrated,
hasn't it?
>> It has been.
Although, I make one exception.
What Dr. Death would say at the
penalty stage of a capital
murder trial.
He would always say that the
defendant is dangerous and will
kill, and kill again, unless he
is killed by the state.
This is exactly what he said
about Randall Adams.
>> And I gather about a hundred
other people on death row.
>> The only problem with this
prediction, is Adams had never
killed anybody.
He had never committed any crime
whatsoever, except for a DWI
that was ten years' previous.
He's been out of prison now for
over 20 years and has never
committed any kind of crime
whatsoever, felony, misdemeanor,
whatever.
Grigson's predictions were just
completely off-base, completely
wrong.
>> So that was obviously, almost
an earth-shaking film, the
results, actually a direct major
response to a film that you
made.
But along the way, before that
and after, you made films that
were about causes that were not
so big, or things that weren't
causes at all that were perhaps
just descriptions of then
unknown people.
>> Yes.
>> Who were not controversial,
and yet you found something
to tie them together.
I'm thinking of a film
like "Fast, Cheap
and Out of Control."
How did you ever come up
with the idea for that,
coming up with these completely
seemingly different people,
and uniting them somehow.
>> It's always hard to know
where ideas come from.
And usually, by the time
I'm making a movie,
I've forgotten about why
I'm making it.
I've just become involved
in the process of making it.
"Fast, Cheap" is an odd movie,
because it is four stories that
are seemingly unrelated.
A mole-rat photographer,
a lion tamer..
>> A robotics expert.
>> A robotics expert
and a topiary gardener.
Why package these together
in one movie?
I like the idea of untethering
a documentary
from its subject matter.
So much of documentary
takes its importance from
what it's purportedly about.
I sometimes joke,
you can't make a bad movie
about Mother Theresa,
because after all,
Mother Theresa is a good person.
>> And stature to anything--
>> But the truth of the matter
is you can make a very bad movie
about Mother Theresa.
It really doesn't matter
how good she personally is,
you can make a very, very bad
movie about her.
The idea that I can pick
subjects that are seemingly
unimportant or unworthy
and turn them into movies,
interesting movies,
was a worthy enterprise for me.
It's finding something
in the story that's unexpected,
unbranded, the movie doesn't
stamp on itself,
"I'm important,"
or "I'm significant."
>> We're going to talk
about distribution and marketing
a little later, and
how you would brand a film.
But let's have a look at "Fast,
Cheap and Out of Control,"
and see how you bring in
one of these subjects,
if not four.
>> Evolution spent a long time,
billions of years,
getting to the point of little
creatures which could chase
each other around, have
mobility, and interact with
the world in a meaningful way,
apart from being an amoebae
that just sits there
and doesn't do much.
Once that stuff was there,
all this other stuff
evolved very quickly.
Higher level intelligence,
whatever that is,
is pretty easy once you have
the ability to move around,
hunt, chase...
They're the tough parts.
I don't believe it's possible to
have a disembodied intelligence
without a physical connection
to reality.
Everything we think,
everything in our thought
process is built around being
in touch with reality.
Even the word "touch"...
A cockroach has 30,000 hairs,
each of which is a sensor.
The most complex robot we've
built has a 150 sensors,
and it's just about killed us.
We can't expect to do as well
as animals do in the world
until we get past
that sensing barrier.
>> Whatever you're saying here,
it is funny.
I mean,
the footage is kind of like
pseudo-scientific-looking '50s
footage mixed in with animation,
mixed in with,
I'd say "serious," but the guy
doesn't even do that for me.
He doesn't even look quite
that serious when he's talking
about robotics.
How did you decide
to put all this stuff together?
It must have been
a heck of an editing job.
>> It was an impossible
editing job.
It took well over a year
to edit.
Interesting, because it's
the kitchen sink approach to
filmmaking.
There's all kinds of media in
this movie.
Everything you could imagine.
So, the task of putting that all
together was monumental.
And there was no model for it.
There was no movie like this.
No prototype.
>> Toward the end of this film,
if I remember right, you
actually make the cuts from one
of each of the four individuals
closer together, and then have
maybe the MIT robotics guy
talking over surface footage,
and in one way, a blending.
I mean, is this your way
of kind of your own personal
Errol Morris'
unified field theory?
Uniting all these disparate
things?
>> Maybe so.
We had a plan in the editing
that we'd start out with these
four discreet stories.
The audience would be clear
there's story A, B, C and D.
And then, as the movie proceeds,
the stories get mixed together,
they get blended together until
there's a certain point in the
movie where you're in free fall,
The dialogue and the picture
become divorced from each other.
>> Right.
>> And you don't know quite
exactly where you are.
I don't think there's really
anything quite like this movie.
I'm quite proud of it.
But I would be very, very
reluctant to try to do this
again.
>> So the overall effect, you
would say, in a word or two, of
a film like that, "Fast, Cheap
and Out of Control," would be,
the effect that you're after,
I mean, blended, certainly
gets us most of the way there.
>> A dream.
It was made around the time that
my mom and step-father died.
I have always looked at the film
as an elegy.
And it may be the most visually
interesting film that I've made.
Built around a lot of devices
that I've used in other movies,
odd serials,
black and white imagery.
You name it, you can find it
in that movie in some form
or another.
>> Which I suspect is the way
the mind actually works,
all the kaleidoscopic pieces
somehow ground together.
>> That's probably
a great way to describe it.
It is a kaleidoscopic movie.
But a movie I hope
with some heart.
It's a movie about four people
confronting ideas about
mortality and life,
in one form or another.
>> Not long after "Fast, Cheap
and Out of Control," you got
back toward the death row theme,
but in a somewhat different way
than what you had done
with "Thin Blue Line,"
with "Mr. Death."
This is another, I guess I would
say small person, and yet
he has a way
of walking on the world's stage.
How did you find him?
>> The "New York Times."
Page 1 of the "New York Times."
One of my favorite oxymorons
is painless execution,
taking the ouch
out of the death penalty.
Fred Leuchter appeared in an
article, and the headline was,
"Can Capital Punishment
Be Humane?"
There he was, standing in front
of one of his patent-pending
electric chairs.
I read the article
buried deep in the paper.
And very near the end of the
article, a line or two, was
reference made to the fact that
he was a holocaust denier,
and that he had been involved
in this odd report, The Leuchter
Report, which had become
fashionable in neo-Nazi circles.
>> He had been denying the
holocaust.
>> That's correct.
>> But he actually put
scientific, or pseudo-scientific
measures to demonstrate his
theory.
>> One of the most appalling
things is to see science, which
is one of the great constructs
of the human mind, used for the
purpose of selling idiocy.
It's not uncommon, but it's
still appalling.
>> So were you interested in
exposing him in your film?
>> Yes and no.
I'm a Jewish boy
from Long Island.
I never had any reason to doubt
that the holocaust happened.
So why even be interested in
someone like Fred Leuchter?
I would say one of my favorite
things is false believe, people
believing things that are
unutterably false, but they find
a way to believe them anyway.
Fred Leuchter is the perfect
example of this sort of thing.
One thing that really interested
me is what is anti-Semitism?
Here you have a guy who has done
things that, on the face of it,
seem a perfect example of
anti-Semitic stuff.
Denying the holocaust, claiming
that poison gas wasn't used in
Auschwitz, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
At the very least you would say
that this exhibits a certain
insensitivity to Jews,
and to history.
So what the hell is this story
about?
I think that's one question.
There's a question beyond the
question is this true or not.
To me, of course it wasn't true.
That was not to be debated.
Of course, I did go to the
effort, paid lip service, to
showing why Fred's research was
really, really off-base and
stupid.
But that was not at the heart of
the movie.
The heart of the movie is asking
the question, who is this man,
what in the hell is he thinking?
And why?
Is it anti-Semitism?
Is it some kind of hubris?
Is it a way of showing he knows
better than everybody else?
It's interesting.
I am writing a long piece now
for the "New York Times" on a
four-year-old murder case,
a case involving a Green Beret,
Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald.
>> Oh, yes.
>> Now, here's a case that is
really based on pseudo-science.
It's interesting to see experts
take the stand, offer "expert"
testimony, and the horrible
realization that it's really not
science.
It's the veneer of science,
the facade of science.
It's a kind of make-believe
science, like Emily Miller in
"The Thin Blue Line" is a
make-believe detective, going
through the motions, going
through the actions, thinking
that she's actually
investigating something,
when in fact she's completely
delusional.
But here's the question.
Here's the central question.
Are we all like that?
Are we all just completely out
of our minds?
>> Well, that is how we find
films interesting, isn't it?
Or, to put it in '70's terms,
how we relate to them,
is am I like that, or
in what way am I like that?
>> Absolutely.
Am I like that?
And there's, of course,
I hope I'm not like that.
>> And at the end,
of course I'm not like that.
>> Of course I'm not like that.
How could I possibly be like
that?
>> Let's see
some of "Mr. Death."
This was from 1999, and see
some of the techniques you used,
not just to talk about the
holocaust denial so much,
as about this electric chair,
or improved electric chair.
>> Indeed.
>> That Mr. Death
was perfecting.
>> Yes.
>> That was back in '89,
I believe it was.
At that time I was still in
school.
I just remember coming home,
what is this big box in the
front yard?
It's an electric chair.
Hmmm.
Fred and my uncle were here,
you know, he'd come out
with the crowbars.
They had to break the box open,
unscrew all the parts and
there's an electric chair
sitting in the front yard.
It was just very unusual,
something that I wasn't
expecting.
I guess Fred was expecting it.
(laughs)
It's very difficult
getting up and down those stairs
with a couple hundred pound
piece of oak chair.
Of course, before we even
brought it inside,
had to have Fred sit down in it,
strapped him in.
I said no thanks.
I had processed a couple
of rolls of film;
photos that I took
for engineering purposes.
Detailed stuff, so you know how
it looked before you took it
apart.
I went through it and I said,
"Wait a minute."
I went back and,
what the hell is this?
We had a magnifier,
and we were trying to figure out
what was there.
We saw what appeared to be
more than one image.
As far as I understand it,
certain objects give off auras.
And some objects that have been
exposed to high intensity
electromagnetic fields absorb
some of that energy and would
give off an aura.
I don't know what we
photographed.
We don't know if we photographed
an entity.
I mean,
we don't know what's there.
It may still reside in the parts
that are in Tennessee.
Or when I tore the chair apart
maybe it was freed.
I don't know.
That's assuming there was
something there to start with.
>> This takes us beyond the
realm of would you say, kind of
the political issue of capital
punishment, into the realm of
weird.
I mean, with this aural
photography, the image of,
presumably, an executed convict
in the chair.
How did you tap into that?
Did he just willingly get into
that discussion?
>> Yes, willingly got into that
discussion.
The story of this photograph,
his claim, of course, is that
he's taking a photograph and he
sees ghosts, or ghost-like
figures that are floating about.
>> The electric chair.
>> The Tennessee electric chair,
the ghosts of those who were
electrocuted in that chair.
Now, do I believe
in this sort of thing?
Sorry, I don't.
But what I was fascinated by,
and it becomes the central theme
of the entire movie.
You could consider this a kind
of mini film inside of the film,
is the question of what in hell
does Fred believe?
What's going on in his head?
Does he believe in this stuff?
Is this just some kind of
Vaudeville act, a charades?
And how were these photographs
taken?
They seem so obviously produced
through double exposure.
They seem to be hoaxes, frauds.
Did he commit the fraud?
Did someone else commit the
fraud?
Did he commit the fraud and then
conveniently forget that he had
committed a fraud?
To me, it raised all kinds of
crazy questions about Fred and
his capacity to believe
anything.
I think there are many of us,
maybe all of us, that are
capable of believing anything.
All you have to do is look at
politics at the current moment,
or probably at any moment in
history, to convince yourself
that people's ability to believe
is unfettered.
People can believe in anything.
It doesn't matter how ridiculous
it is.
It doesn't matter how pernicious
it is.
People can believe it.
And maybe that's the scariest
fact about people, the scariest
fact of all.
>> That certainly comes into
your Oscar-winning film,
"Fog of War."
Self-delusion,
powers of self-deception,
wouldn't you say?
>> Yes.
>> When you interviewed
Robert McNamara all those years
after the Vietnam War,
that he was probably
the main architect of?
>> This is an important
question.
He is always described, I mean
if you read a thousand popular
accounts of the Kennedy and
Johnson years, as likely as not,
McNamara would be described as
the principal architect of the
Vietnam War.
A war, by the way, that I
demonstrated against.
>> In Wisconsin, I imagine.
>> Not in Wisconsin--
In this city!
In 1969, on Bascom Hill.
I don't believe he was the chief
architect of the war.
This will be something endlessly
debated by historians.
I believe that the real
architect was Lyndon Johnson.
>> Is this a conclusion you came
to after interviewing McNamara?
>> It's a conclusion that I
came to, not just simply
after interviewing McNamara,
but investigating
and researching this story.
I don't think McNamara is the
fall guy, by any means.
He was an active participant
in all of this.
But the main impetus
for the war I do not believe
came from McNamara.
This is also a really important
and interesting question, a
question about morality,
a deep question about morality.
If you serve a president who
endorses policies that you don't
agree with, what do you do?
You protest within?
Do you quit?
If you go public, exactly what
is the correct course of action.
And it's not so simple.
It's not as though these
questions have easy answers,
where you can look up in a book
that'll give you some algorithm
for deciding one way or the
other.
They are vexing, perhaps
impenetrable moral questions.
>> How did you get McNamara
to reveal so much of his regret
and doubt about that war?
>> Well, he lives in a world
of regret and doubt, to be sure.
I'm always amazed when people,
having seen the film, ask me,
does McNamara have regrets about
the role he played in Vietnam?
Well, gee, gosh, golly,
the entire movie is about that.
The entire movie is about
his regret.
My wife sometimes calls him
the Flying Dutchman in the sense
that here's a character
traveling the world hoping
for some kind of redemption.
A redemption which, I think
in his heart he would like,
but perhaps feels he doesn't
deserve.
He's a very complex, immensely
fascinating character.
I was very lucky, very fortunate
to have had the opportunity
to interview him,
to make this movie.
A once in a lifetime
opportunity.
>> Maybe your timing was just
right in terms of his thinking
on the issue.
>> You look back on a successful
project, and you think, well,
how did I get this timing right?
How did this really work out?
Because there's so many ways
in which it could have
not worked out.
There's so many ways in which it
could have failed.
McNamara came in on a Tuesday.
Two or three days before, there
was an article in the "New York
Times" Sunday magazine on Bob
Kerrey, who had been a senator
from Kansas, a Medal of Honor
winner, a Vietnam hero, who had
been accused of war crimes.
And McNamara clearly hadn't read
this article.
I mentioned it to him.
This is just shortly after he
arrived in the studio.
He got very angry, saying that
accusing Bob Kerrey of war
crimes was misplaced.
If anyone should be accused of
war crimes, it should be him.
He was Secretary of Defense.
A very powerful, surprising
statement.
We started the interview, and
within a couple of minutes, we
talked about the fire bombing in
Japan, and his role.
This was something unknown.
He hadn't written about it
in his biography.
>> In 1945...
>> He was a 27-year-old
Lt. Colonel
in the Army Air Force.
>> Somehow connected to
Curtis LeMay, I would assume.
>> Connected to Curtis LeMay
and to LeMay's superior,
General Norstad.
>> And later, LeMay, of course,
played a prominent role
in the Vietnam War.
>> One of the odd things is when
McNamara, it's the most powerful
thing in the "Fog of War,"
says that if our side had lost
World War II, he would've been
tried along with many other
people as a war criminal.
The fire bombing in Japan
is now nearly forgotten.
>> Because of the atomic bombs.
>> We think of
the two atomic bombs.
LeMay, one of the fiercest
proponents of atomic weaponry,
and an enthusiast, you might
even say, for atomic war,
was not in favor of using the
atomic bomb in Japan, because he
thought he had already turned
Japan into an ashtray.
The fire bombing was
so effective, it displaced...
>> Widespread.
>> Yes, it destroyed
city after city after city.
It killed literally millions
upon millions of people and
displaced millions more.
LeMay's view was, why bother,
we've already done
the work.
So, yes, that was
a very powerful moment for me,
and a very powerful
moment in the film.
>> I think one of the other most
powerful moments is this one,
where McNamara is talking to
a former Vietnamese adversary.
And you really get the
impression in this short scene
that McNamara, and the U.S.
by extension, got it all wrong,
in terms of the motive
of the Vietnamese in that war.
Let's look at this clip
from "The Fog of War."
>> Yes.
>> There aren't many examples
in which you bring
two former enemies together,
at the highest levels, and
discuss what might have been.
I formed the hypothesis that
each of us could have achieved
our objectives without
the terrible loss of life.
And I wanted to test that
by going to Vietnam.
The former Foreign Minister
of Vietnam, a wonderful man
named Thach said,
"You're totally wrong.
We were fighting
for our independence.
You were fighting
to enslave us."
We almost came to blows.
That was noon on the first day.
"Do you mean to say it was not
a tragedy for you,
when you lost 3,400,000
Vietnamese killed,
which on our population base
is the equivalent
of 27 million Americans?
What did you accomplish?
You didn't get any more than we
were willing to give you
at the beginning of the war.
You could have had the whole
damn thing: independence,
unification."
"Mr. McNamara, You must never
have read a history book.
If you'd had, you'd know we
weren't pawns of the Chinese
or the Russians.
McNamara, didn't you know that?
Don't you understand that we
have been fighting the Chinese
for 1,000 years?
We were fighting
for our independence.
And we would fight
to the last man.
And we were determined to do so.
And no amount of bombing,
no amount of U.S. pressure
would ever have stopped us."
>> Is that Robert McNamara
saying that the Vietnam War
was a mistake,
that it was unnecessary
for the U.S. interests?
In that shot?
>> Interesting for me to think
about what McNamara is saying in
1968 and 1969, and the lectures
of Harvey Goldberg
on this campus.
One of the points that was
consistently made was that
Ho Chi Minh was a patriot first,
a Communist second.
And that he had come to America
because he had been
so influenced by our own
Bill of Rights and
Declaration of Independence.
And we had rejected him.
It's a very sad story about how
our preconceptions,
our various beliefs
actually lead to catastrophe.
I mean this is a catastrophe,
58,000 American soldiers killed.
The estimates vary,
2.5 or 3 million Vietnamese.
This is a catastrophe.
There's no other way
to describe it.
And its effect on America and
our belief in our own democracy
was strained.
I'm very proud
to be an American.
I consider myself a patriot,
whatever that means.
But at the time of the war,
to me, the patriotic course
was objecting to it.
I'm very proud to have been part
of those demonstrations.
McNamara knows that.
I would tell him, you know,
I demonstrated against the war.
Well, so did all of his
children.
>> Is that right?
>> Yes.
He was estranged from his three
children for many, many,
many years.
>> Is that kind of
self-perception also the theme
in "Standard Operating
Procedure"?
>> Uh, yes and...
Another theme, the theme
of photography and how
we can be given a false idea
about the world through images,
something that endlessly
interests me.
>> A false idea?
I would think you would've
said a truer idea, given the
photography that came out of
"Standard Operating Procedure."
>> Like truth in general,
truth is never handed to you
on a platter.
It's not somehow you arrive at
truth by taking a picture or
writing a sentence.
It's a search, a quest.
>> You do mention in the film
that some of those images, for
example, were cropped to remove
certain other people who were
party to the goings on at the
prison in Iraq.
>> What happened goes so far
beyond that sort of thing.
People will say, well,
they know better.
It wasn't just these seven bad
apples, that we're responsible
for all of the bad things
that happened in Abu Ghraib.
I believe that those photographs
got George W. Bush re-elected
in 2004.
This is a somewhat heretical
view, because didn't Bush
himself say Abu Ghraib was the
worst disaster of his
presidency?
But here's how I think it
worked.
The pictures are released,
shown around the world.
People are horrified.
Arguments ensue.
What do these pictures really
mean?
Do they show the face of the
American war in Iraq, or are
they pictures of just a few
demented individuals that are
not characteristic of the whole?
What was lost in these endless
debates is a real analysis of
what happened at Abu Ghraib.
As if somehow you could argue
about it through the pictures,
the pictures were all you needed
to see, all you needed to know.
And the debate stopped there.
So, it was easy for the
president simply to say this was
despicable.
This makes me sick.
This is not America.
To distance himself from it.
But in the absence of any real
investigation into Abu Ghraib,
we have come to believe
that those photographs
is what happened there.
And the true story is a much
deeper, and a much uglier story.
It's one of the darkest chapters
in American history.
We were operating, in essence,
a concentration camp in the
heart of the Sunni triangle.
It's interesting having made
this movie, because
I really made a movie
close to current events.
McNamara, yes, it had
application to current events,
but it at least is framed
in events of 50-60 years ago.
This was very, very immediate.
Many people would love to
pretend it never happened.
Maybe myself included, I might
add.
But it did.
>> Let's take a look at some of
"Standard Operating Procedure,"
and see what the procedure
for Errol Morris is in airing
some of the subject matter
having to do with Abu Ghraib.
"Standard Operating Procedure." I would say over half of my
cases were solved because the
criminal did something stupid.
Taking photographs of these
things is that one something
stupid.
They gave me 12 CDs and said
there's thousands of pictures
from Abu Ghraib.
We want you to find all of them
that depict possible prisoner
abuse, or people that were in
the area at the time the abuse
was occurring.
And we need to know exactly when
the pictures were taken.
The pictures are worth a
thousand words, but unless you
know what date and time they're
talking, you wouldn't know what
the story was.
I starting lining pictures up
based on subject matter.
I put these on a timeline so the
jury could see when the incident
began.
When did it end?
How much time lapsed in between
these photographs?
How much actual effort did these
people put into what they were
doing to the prisoners?
Who else was there in the room
at the time it occurred?
How could all this go on without
anybody noticing it?
When you look at this whole case
as one great big media event,
you kind of lose focus.
These pictures actually depict
several separate incidents of
possible abuse, or possible
standard operating procedure.
All you could do is present what
you know to be factual.
You can't bring in emotional
politics into the court.
>> Very effective in some other
techniques there that we can't
show in the time allowed,
in projecting, I'll call them
re-enactments, on doors
and walls in kind of
a ghostly manner.
After all, we're talking about
some ghostly interrogators
in that context.
>> Yeah.
>> Also, though, probably
the most sophisticated use
of graphics.
Have computers really changed
significantly the way you make
films over the years?
>> Well, certainly digital
editing and digital photography
changed how I make movies.
I used to call myself a
ten-minute psychiatrist, or the
11-minute psychiatrist.
When you work on film,
whether it's 16mm or 35mm,
a magazine of film is 11 minutes
and a couple seconds.
You have to stop, take the
magazine off, put another
magazine on, slate, etc.
Psychiatrist's know when their
15-minute hour is up.
I would always know when my
11-minute magazine was up.
Now, it's different, because all
of my interviews are shot on
high-end digital media.
And I can shoot interviews
forever.
Whether this is a good thing
or a bad thing, I don't know.
My first digital interview was
for "Standard Operating
Procedure," and was done with
Janis Karpinski.
We shot over two days,
17 hours over two days,
which is of course, absurd.
>> Yes, it is.
It's a very high shooting ratio,
isn't it?
I want to end with a commercial.
>> Sure.
>> I can't resist being a little
retro here.
You did what, 100 commercials
for Miller beer?
>> Yes, maybe more.
>> Did you create the, I'll call
it the persona for these ads?
Because they do have, the ones
I've seen, a common sort of
center, which is me and my beer,
and other things I'll
accommodate if possible,
but don't expect too much.
>> This was truly
a collaborative effort.
Three creatives at Wieden
& Kennedy in Portland, Oregon.
Jeff Kling, Jeff Selis,
Jeff Williams, I call them
"The Jeffs," and myself, and
an editor, a really fabulous
editor, Angus Wall,
created the campaign.
One of the best things I've ever
done.
I assume I'm not going to be
remembered for my movies,
but I expect to be remembered
for Miller High Life.
>> We'll hope that's not
the case, but these are very
memorable commercials.
Here's one.
>> Hmm, that last egg's
looking real good.
You had quite a few though.
Maybe you shouldn't.
But, if you make a light choice
here, maybe you will have room
for just one more.
See there?
When you life the High Life,
you can live it both ways.
>> It's got that Errol Morris
look, even in 30 seconds, or 60,
you can say that's Errol Morris.
>> Well, thank you.
>> It's got the let's say, down
to earth look, if not the
unwashed look, the everyday
look, and the little person,
if you will,
enjoying his Miller beer.
>> Yes.
Commercials are really
interesting.
And when they turn out well,
which is not always the case,
it's always a great pleasure.
This campaign, it went on
for close to a decade.
And they left us alone and
allowed us to do a lot of
really, really good work
that I'm proud of.
>> Errol Morris, it's been a
great pleasure spending the hour
with you.
>> Thank you.
>> There are many more questions
I have, so the next time you're
in the neighborhood, I hope I
get a chance to ask them.
>> Thank you.
>> I'm Norman Gilliland, I hope
you can join me next time around
for University Place.
>> University Place
is made possible in part
by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting.