Dinner and a Doc, April 11, 2009
April 6th, 2009
I know that I will only be submitting once again to my Errol Morris fixation by showing Standard Operating Procedure at this month’s Dinner and a Doc, but I just bought my own copy of the film last week, and I have not yet seen it, so that is what we will be watching. Those who have concerns about my obsessive relationship with Errol should feel free to direct them to my therapist.
The film explores the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Morris, who has described the film as a non-fiction horror movie, sets out to discover the meaning of the photographs of the torture that took place in the prison, not just their sensationalized and media produced meanings or their seemingly self-evident meanings, but their broader and more contextualized meanings. Using the words of one of the soldiers that he interviewed, Morris claims that the film tries to ask what the pictures mean outside their frames.
Those who are interested in further information can check the
trailer, a clip of the first day at the prison, the official website, and the director’s website.
As usual, the event will be at my place, 130 Dublin Street, Guelph, and all are welcome, though I do appreciate an email or a comment to let me know that you will be coming. We will eat at about 5:30 and begin the film at about 6:00.
4 Responses to “Dinner and a Doc, April 11, 2009”
Leave a Reply
From Word to Word by Jeremy Luke Hill is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
April 7th, 2009 at 12:45 am
You have a therapist?
April 7th, 2009 at 8:03 am
No, actually, but people are always telling me that I should find one
April 7th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Me too, maybe we could just meet in the middle and save a wack of money.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
[...] This past Saturday’s Dinner and a Doc featured Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure, which explores the photographs and video clips that were taken of the torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Morris’ primary concern in the film is not, as one might expect, with torture as such. It is not even with the sort of people who would commit these acts. Rather, it is with the people who would film and photograph the torture, with those who would copy and share these images, and with those who would try to read and interpret this evidence. In doing so, he attends continually to the visual frame, drawing attention to how this frame provides the limit of interpretation and even of legal culpability. [...]