Evil Is a Way of Avoiding Explanation
October 30, 2019 7:40 AM Subscribe
“The World Is, of Course, Insane”: A Conversation with Errol Morris in the New Yorker
Official Trailer for Errol Morris' 'American Dharma' Doc About Bannon
Deconstructing Steve Bannon
Review: American Dharma Only Reaffirms What We Know About Steve Bannon
If you see just one Steve Bannon doc, make it Errol Morris’ deceptively polite American Dharma
Errol Morris Is Still Pissed About the Backlash to His Steve Bannon Documentary
[Errol Morris previously]
Official Trailer for Errol Morris' 'American Dharma' Doc About Bannon
Deconstructing Steve Bannon
Review: American Dharma Only Reaffirms What We Know About Steve Bannon
If you see just one Steve Bannon doc, make it Errol Morris’ deceptively polite American Dharma
Errol Morris Is Still Pissed About the Backlash to His Steve Bannon Documentary
[Errol Morris previously]
Well, it certainly front-and-centers his adversarial mindset, which is probably a key element of his art. I think I'll be skipping this one though:
All of a sudden, people were talking about deplatforming this, deplatforming that, disallowing pernicious speech of one form or another. And I was repeatedly attacked for what I had failed to deliver. I see the task at hand really differently, for better or for worse. I didn’t think it was about difficult questions at all. I thought it was about finding a way in.
The problem with Morris is that he finds a way in and then just sort of hangs out. He's so enamored with the discovery that monsters are really just people when you get close to them, that the end result is he's having Robert McNamara over for dinner.
I think one of the things that people really hate is that I’ve given him a kind of authority. Say that Bannon is laying down a bullshit narrative that, of course, puts Bannon at the center of his narrative. It’s the heroic Bannon. And instead of challenging this bullshit view—this would be the argument—I endorse it. I endorse it by cozying up to him in various ways.
He gets the criticism . . . he's just not very interested in how it would work as a film.
posted by Think_Long at 8:32 AM on October 30, 2019 [6 favorites]
All of a sudden, people were talking about deplatforming this, deplatforming that, disallowing pernicious speech of one form or another. And I was repeatedly attacked for what I had failed to deliver. I see the task at hand really differently, for better or for worse. I didn’t think it was about difficult questions at all. I thought it was about finding a way in.
The problem with Morris is that he finds a way in and then just sort of hangs out. He's so enamored with the discovery that monsters are really just people when you get close to them, that the end result is he's having Robert McNamara over for dinner.
I think one of the things that people really hate is that I’ve given him a kind of authority. Say that Bannon is laying down a bullshit narrative that, of course, puts Bannon at the center of his narrative. It’s the heroic Bannon. And instead of challenging this bullshit view—this would be the argument—I endorse it. I endorse it by cozying up to him in various ways.
He gets the criticism . . . he's just not very interested in how it would work as a film.
posted by Think_Long at 8:32 AM on October 30, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'm going to watch this doc.
I found the Fog of War to be engrossing, I've found every Morris doc I've watched to be time well spent. His responses in the New Yorker interview seem honest.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:31 AM on October 30, 2019 [7 favorites]
I found the Fog of War to be engrossing, I've found every Morris doc I've watched to be time well spent. His responses in the New Yorker interview seem honest.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:31 AM on October 30, 2019 [7 favorites]
The thing I most admire about Morris's filmmaking style is the gentle way in which he manages to persuade all the fish in that barrel to shoot themselves.
Morris, like Jon Ronson whose work I also greatly enjoy, is very good at this.
I expect the Bannon film to turn my stomach in ways that a more Jeremy Paxman approach could never even begin to.
posted by flabdablet at 10:42 AM on October 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
Morris, like Jon Ronson whose work I also greatly enjoy, is very good at this.
I expect the Bannon film to turn my stomach in ways that a more Jeremy Paxman approach could never even begin to.
posted by flabdablet at 10:42 AM on October 30, 2019 [3 favorites]
His responses in the New Yorker interview seem honest.
yeah, but boy did they make my skin crawl.
posted by valkane at 11:46 AM on October 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
yeah, but boy did they make my skin crawl.
posted by valkane at 11:46 AM on October 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
What seems unclear from this interview, having not yet seen the movie, is whether the creation of the movie suffers for being too close to the wound, as he says, or just the viewing of the movie, for the same reason.
posted by pwinn at 1:02 PM on October 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by pwinn at 1:02 PM on October 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by thelonius at 8:11 AM on October 30, 2019 [4 favorites]