Unknown Known, The

Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: July 2nd, 2014.
Director: Errol Morris
Cast: Various
Year: 2013
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The Movie:

Regardless of your political leanings and allegiances, you'd have to be a fool not to understand why US military action that took place during Donald Rumsfeld's tenure as Secretary Of Defense was, to be kind, controversial. While many on the far right continue to insist that his role in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were the right moves in a post 9/11 world, the fact is that these operations caused a whole lot of death and destruction at the expense of the American taxpayer. Filmmaker Errol Morris, the same man who made The Fog Of War (which interviewed former Secretary Of Defense Robert McNamara) interviewed Rumsfeld extensively and then cut that newly shot footage in with pertinent archival clips and the result is the documentary film The Unknown Known.

The movie basically interviews Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld only - there are no political pundits hanging around offering sound bite sized snippets of wit nor are there any of the man's associates here to provide their take on things. Morris asks him about the earlier days of his political career, his work under the Presidents he served under before working with George W. Bush and it's here that the documentary will likely prove most interesting to anyone who has read this far. When asked about the justification for and repercussions of the more controversial aspects of this period in his life, Rumsfeld has always maintained a very astute public face. That continues here, the man is almost fanatical in his certainty, never cracking or letting on that maybe… just maybe… nothing was as black and white as he and his political allies made it out to be in the early 2000's.

So startling is his certainty through the talk here that he can and often does come across as a man who has convinced himself that his own lies (or, to be fair, mistakes) is in fact the truth. He offers no apologies, he seems to need no further evidence that those WMDs existed despite their absence in the grand scheme of things and he offers absolutely no remorse. Rumsfeld does not crack. His answers to Morris' questions, which do not mix words, are not only elusive but they're downright evasive. His ability to dodge offering any real answers is amazing in a way, but we see here a man so committed to keeping up appearances that you have to wonder if he's even capable of honesty or feeling any sort of remorse.

Interestingly enough, Morris lets him do it his way. While some will understandably lament the absence of a good sparring match between the two, the documentary doesn't go there and instead paints an absurd portrait of a man who offers no complicated personality traits or even any sort of hindsight as to the effectiveness of decisions he willingly made. Interestingly enough, Rumsfeld smiles almost the entire time the cameras are on him. His frequent contradictions wind up speaking volumes and Morris lets him do it, which winds up making this all the more interesting. What we wind up with is almost literally a self portrait of a man remarkable not for his strategies or commentary but for his inability to admit mistakes or, seemingly, to feel anything but self-righteous, sanctimonious satisfaction in his role in what history would seem to be proving a pretty epic political clusterfuck.

Quite honestly, it's all incredibly creepy.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The feature is presented in AVC encode 2.40.1 widescreen in 1080p high definition and like a lot of documentaries of this sort it is made up of newly shot interview footage and archival clips. Not surprisingly, the footage shot specifically for this disc looks great. It's clean, colorful and quite sharp without suffering from any artificial filtering or tinkering. Also not surprising is the fact that some of the archival clips, many taken from older news footage sources, doesn't look as good. That's the nature of the beast with presentations like this, but the good certainly outweighs the bad here and all in all the transfer is just fine.

The English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track on the disc actually has a lot more going on in terms of surround activity than you might guess. Dialogue comes primarily from the front and center of the mix, which works, but the score (courtesy of Danny Elfman) and some sound bites are well placed in the rears and front surround channels to create a surprisingly ambitious and enveloping mix. Optional subtitles are provided in English and Spanish.

The main extra on the disc is an audio commentary with director Errol Morris and if you've heard his commentary tracks before then you already know that he's a pretty interesting speaker. Though this track suffers from a few too many instances of dead air, when he gets 'in the zone' he doesn't mix words about his thoughts on Rumsfeld. While there are times where you wish he'd elaborate more on what it was like working on this project or what his intentions were, the vibe here is a decidedly political one. If you don't see things Morris' way you might take issue with that, if you do, you'll probably find yourself agreeing with most of what he says and taking interest in why he says it and how he backs it up even if the pacing issues make this drag in some spots.

The disc also includes the Third Annual Report Of The Secretaries of Defense which is a video document of a meeting from 1989 in which a strong of Defense Secretaries - Melvin Laird, Caspar Weinberger, Frank Carlucci, Robert McNamara, James Schlesinger and Donald Rumsfeld get together to discuss the issues that at the time were affecting US defense strategies. It's almost an hour long and in many ways fairly dry but it is interesting to see these man banter back and forth and to note what they agree and disagree on. A featurette, entitled appropriately enough A Conversation With Errol Morris, runs eight minutes and in many ways covers what you'd have expected the commentary to go over - here he talks about working with Rumsfeld, what he was trying to accomplish with this film and his thoughts on the finished product.

Rounding out the extras is a four part Op/Ed piece entitled The Certainty Of Donald Rumseld written by Errol Morris and appearing here as a text piece. It's an interesting read and allows the filmmaker to further expand on his thoughts on his subject. Some previews for a few other Anchor Bay titles are provided as are menus and chapter selection.

The Final Word:

The Unknown Known won't likely change your opinion of Donald Rumsfeld or what he was responsible for, in fact, if anything it'll likely reinforce it. If you guy into what he says, there's a lot more of that here but if, like many of us (and most of the people that this documentary will appeal to) you consider him a snake, a man living in denial, Morris' film goes a long way towards cementing the reasons for that. Either way, this is a very interesting documentary of a man who is and should remain a polarizing figure in the landscape of American politics and it's absolutely worth seeing if you have an interest in that or in world events.

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