Event

The Unknown Known

Directed by Errol Morris
Starring Donald Rumsfeld
English
1 hr 43 mins, rated NR

In THE UNKNOWN KNOWN, Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris (THE FOG OF WAR) offers a mesmerizing portrait of Donald Rumsfeld, one of the key architects of the Iraq War, and a larger-than-life character who provoked equal levels of fury and adulation from the American public. Rather than conducting a conventional interview, Morris has Rumsfeld perform and expound on his "snowflakes," tens of thousands of memos (many never previously published) he composed as a congressman and as an advisor to four different presidents, twice as Secretary of Defense. These memos provide a window onto historynot history as it actually happened, but history as Rumsfeld wants us to see it. Morris makes plain that Rumsfeld's "snowflakes"whether intended to elucidate, rationalize, obfuscate, or control historyare contradicted by the facts. THE UNKNOWN KNOWN is an illumination of the mystery of Donald Rumsfeld, an unknown known.