Watch The Unknown Known For Free

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Better Late Then Never

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Either Errol Morris underestimated Donald Rumsfeld or he was overly confident about the power of his medium, but the result is far below The Fog of War.Sure McNamara had had time to mellow and he wouldn't deny mistakes while Rumsfeld won't move an inch, except for the staged emotional bit, so in the Unknown Known we only have politics at its worst: unabashed dissimulation, total rejection of any form of empathy (while it was one of the Eleven Lessons from Robert S. McNamara, Empathize with your Enemy) all wrapped up in the flag and under the pretence that "We, the Best Breed of Politicians, have to make important decisions that are way too complex for you, Little Man, to begin to understand".Watching Rumsfeld having it his way, no less than during his own press conferences where he toyed around with journalists, is a profoundly disgusting and distressing vision. He unflinchingly tell us "Ok, eventually there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Irak, intelligence was flawed, but going after Saddam Hussein has made the world a better place all the same". Intelligence was not just flawed, it was distorted and even fabricated to please the warmongers.Bad things (like torture) just happens. Even when you are doing a heck of a job. That is Rumsfeld definitive argument and Errol Morris gets stuck in the "beauty of evil rhetorics" like a deer in the headlights. It is distressing to think that someone watching this without knowing all the subtext would think of Rumsfeld as a role model for Statesmen. The only redeeming part is that the documentary succeeds in suggesting how big a SOB Rumsfeld has been during his career, so much so that Reagan picked his rival George HW Bush as his running mate, sparing the World the disaster of having Rumsfeld President in the 80s. Then he had to work for Bush Jr and his former deputy, yet maybe that gave the same general disaster (geopolitical, economical...) as having Rumsfeld officially in the Oval Office.

Former United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003.An interesting technique, having Rumsfeld read his own memos (of which, he estimates, there are millions). This method allows for the historical record to be compared to Rumsfeld's own memory of events.Rumsfeld says he is not "obsessive" but "cool and measured", and his interest in Iraq is the daily reports he was receiving from men in the Middle East. Others, of course, see it differently, and believe the administration actively pursued an excuse to invade Iraq. Morris suggests to Rumsfeld that the American people believed there was a link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld says, "I don't think so... I don't think the American people were confused." Some interesting comments are made. Rumsfeld says, "We don't assassinate leaders of other countries." This is a way to justify invasions, even if it is not entirely true. Regarding his personal life, he comments, "I didn't want to get married, I just didn't want her to marry anyone else." That is an honest statement people can identify with.An interesting aside is when a tape is played where Nixon, Kissinger and Haldeman talk of Rumsfeld as not being loyal and being too close to the media. This ended up being to his advantage, as he left before the stain of Watergate could reach him. In fact, it seems that under President Ford, Rumsfeld got his revenge by encouraging Ford to fire the Nixon appointees. This also lead to the promotion of folks like George Bush and others who would be influential for the next thirty years.Ultimately, the film makes Rumsfeld out to be human rather than anything his critics might want to throw at him. He may not be able to explain away his bad decisions and possible lies, but he presents himself honestly and Morris shows him fairly. This is as balanced a look at a divisive character as anyone could ask for.

Overall, a pretty good treatment of an important subject for a documentary. Errol Morris does, however, return to his favorite directorial conceits over and over again.One such tic of his is the sped up view of a skyline (with the clouds racing across the sky, day turning into twilight, then night all in a few seconds). I suppose some directors use this technique to indicate the passage of time, but in this movie most scenes opened with titles on the screen indicating the month, day, year, etc. Hence, no need for the fast-moving clouds.Also, because Rumsfeld referred to his messages as "snowflakes," Morris over-used the glass ball snowflakes as a bridge between many scenes. Morris is an admirable documentary film maker and shouldn't fall into the habit of pro forma use of such conceits.

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?