Film Review: The Unknown Known | Directed by Errol Morris

What you didn't know you didn't know about Donald Rumsfeld.

The Unknown Known is a documentary from 2013 about Donald Rumsfeld. It was directed by Errol Morris, who conducted 33 hours of interviews with Rumsfeld over the course of 11 separate sessions of filming during the span of about one year.

Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense of the United States firstly from 1975 to '77 under President Gerald Ford, and then again decades later from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. Besides this, he has at various points also been a Congressman for Illinois, Chief of Staff, and various other positions, but The Unknown Known focuses largely on Rumsfeld's terms as Secretary of Defense, in particular his term under Bush, during the War in Afghanistan and Iraq Ear.

This isn't Morris' first film about an aged former Secretary of Defense who served during a controversial and unpopular war. Predating it by a decade was 2003's The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, which interviewed Robert S. McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense from 1961 to '68 under Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, during which time the Vietnam War was being waged. The similarities end there, however.

The title of the film comes from a legendary statement by Rumsfeld during a Pentagon press conference on February 12, 2002, some five months after 9/11.

DONALD RUMSFELD: Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

Pointed out within the film is the original context of the statement: it's a response to a question about whether or not Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction.

If you are looking for an interrogation of Rumsfeld, this is not for you. If you are looking for an extensive grilling of Rumsfeld, this is, again, not for you. Morris does not push Rumsfeld very much - indeed, almost not at all. If, however, you are looking for a fascinating, if occasionally baffling, look into Rumsfeld's inner workings, than this may - may - be for you.

The first twenty or so minutes of the film act as an introduction - Rumsfeld's thoughts on the nature of intelligence (Pearl Harbor, for example, was a failure of imagination) and the way the day of September 11th started for him.

The next portion of the film goes back in time to when Rumsfeld was first elected to Congress. It talks briefly about his marriage to his wife ("I didn't really want to marry her, but I also didn't want anyone else to marry her."), and his shuffling amongst Nixon's and Ford's Cabinet, and the 1980 Republican National Convention, and even for a little bit of his time during Reagan's government. It spares only a brief mention of his time in pharmaceuticals (a period which would've been fascinating to learn about, albeit excluded for entirely understandable reasons).

Finally it leads us into Rumsfeld's term as Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush. It's fascinating to watch, if, unfortunately, not as insightful or hard-hitting as one might hope.

The film focuses largely on "snowflakes", memos dictated by Rumsfeld during his time in government. At the time, he says, they were working documents, but now they have become historical documents. Asked about their quantity, he says that in the last six years at the Pentagon he made over twenty thousand of them. "There must be millions."

Walking away from this film after having watched it for the first time, I have to say I was baffled by Rumsfeld. Watching a second time, I realized that maybe that was the point.

Not once during the entire interview does Rumsfeld display any introspection at all. Not once does the slightest shade of guilt come in. It's curiously impersonal, rather it's his marriage or his reaction to 9/11. The only moments of emotion appear at his marriage, which he said was a good decision, and at the brief times George H.W. Bush comes up. During his time at the Ford administration, Rumsfeld pushed H.W. Bush into directorship of the C.I.A. as a way of ruining his presidential ambitions.

Not, of course, that Rumsfeld characterizes it this way. The other moment of emotion comes with a story of an American soldier who pulled through from near-death.

Throughout the film, words and their definitions are imposed on the screen as Rumsfeld talks. The reason comes up later - Rumsfeld seems obsessed by precision in language.

He speaks of himself as "cool, rational", but in his decision-making, all explanation and justification points to a conclusion he'd already reached. Words spin around Rumsfeld's head. Even, during a segment on the subject of detainees, there enough memos across the years to create a graphic of the words falling into a black pit.

His confidence, too, is immeasurable. Not cocky, not even arrogant, often charming and friendly - but he displays no self-doubt in his decisions. Morris said that he asked Rumsfeld what he thought of The Fog of War, too which Rumsfeld apparently disliked it, stating that McNamara had nothing to be sorry for.

So, too, is he unwilling (or, perhaps, incapable) to be introspective in the slightest. Caught out lying or contradicting himself, he displays no measurable reaction. Of Abu Ghraib, he states that of all the hearings they did, there was no evidence that torture techniques in Guantanamo had migrated to Iraq. Morris reads out some of the Schlesinger Report on it, in which it directly states that torture techniques had migrated to Iraq. There is only a beat before Rumsfeld agrees with it, seemingly unable to understand, comprehend, or realize that he'd just lied, and then contradicted himself on it.

One of the few moments when Morris does directly confront Rumsfeld head-on is on the subject of the torture memo, the Haynes memos. Rumsfeld tersely informs him that they were (paraphrasing) "written by the Attorney General, the senior legal official of the United States, nominated by the President and confirmed overwhelmingly by the United States Senate. Little different light cast on it then you did." At the end Rumsfeld says that he's never read them!

Musically, you may be surprised to find out that its score was written by Danny Elfman. Elfman provides a score exactly what you'd expect from Elfman doing a documentary - it retains his 'dark fairytale' style to a T: strings, vibraphones, wordless choral elements. It forms, musically, a darkly satirical, underplayed counterpoint to Rumsfeld's words. It's minimalist, Philip Glass-esque (a style which, I'm tempted to say, is particularly well-suited to the documentary film).

Morris, of course, accompanies this admirably. Rumsfeld is not merely a talking head. He is accompanied by visual metaphors of what he says and what he does (images of swamps, oceans, doors), charts, graphs, old footage from his time in government. His interviewing will, however, leave anyone looking for strong condemnation and questioning disappointing, for he steadfastly refuses to demonize Rumsfeld. For my money, this was a wise choice, letting us deeper into Rumsfeld's mind, creating what is sure to be an enduring testament to one the most important figures of the past forty years.

Errol Morris was also kind enough to include a number of special features. I for my part will go with full disclosure and say that I only watched one of them, the Director's Commentary. It, like the film, was an interesting beast. Morris offers many reflections on Rumsfeld's character, stuff that I myself had not thought of. His shock at Rumsfeld's not reading the Haynes memo is entirely genuine.

He makes a couple of comparisons, also, to The Fog of War. I kind of wish I'd watched it first, now, so that I could remark on the differences. My interest, though, was lead more in the direction of Rumsfeld, who played a more direct part in where we are now.

Parallel to the fascinating mind of Rumsfeld is Morris' own ruminations on what kind of film it is - a horror? a fable? - but his observations on Rumsfeld's character, his pointing out of Rumsfeld's tics, are more interesting.

The disc also includes a couple of other bonuses: the full hour-long 1989 Third Annual Report of the Secretaries of Defense, a conference of former Secretaries of Defense, a brief excerpt of which is shown during the documentary, as well as a Conversation with Errol Morris, and, for those with a computer with DVD-ROM drive, "The Certainty of Donald Rumsfeld", an article he wrote for the New York Times. If you use a search engine, you can still find that article - albeit in four parts.

The Unknown Known. It's a fascinating account of a fascinating time in history. (Can you tell I like the word fascinating?) During the course of the film, Rumsfeld provides two definitions for the term "unknown known". At the very beginning (and repeated at the end) are the words from one of the snowflakes he dictated during his years under Bush.

Things that you think you know, that it turns out you did not.

At the end, discussing the various permutations of the words "unknown" and "known", and all their possible combinations, Rumsfeld provides a different definition:

Things that you know, that you don't know you know.

The incongruence between them is pointed out by Morris, and Rumsfeld simply says that that the memo has it backwards. (In the Director's Commentary, Morris pointedly observes that the two definitions have a simple crucial distinction. The initial definition provided in the memo is that of humility, whereas Rumsfeld's definition from the film is that of hubris.)

Perhaps, however, a more accurate definition of "unknown known" - and this may be particularly well-suited to the subject matter of the film - would be this:

Things we know that we do not like to acknowledge we know.

It's hard to summarize a film like this because of its baffling subject. There's so much more I want or could say, but nothing I can say can really come up to the experience of watching it. One thing is for sure - The Unknown Known will remain a fascinating glimpse into a controversial period of U.S. history, seen through the lens of the mind of Donald Rumsfeld.

(Having reviewed The Unknown Known, the next logical step is to review The Fog of War. Please keep an eye out for that review coming in the next couple of weeks.)