"American Dharma" gives Steve Bannon a voice, so if you're already turned off by that prospect, then documentary filmmaker extraordinaire Errol Morris' latest movie is not for you. The rest of us can go into this beguiling film with an open mind and accept the challenge of an open dialogue with a man who many believe to be responsible for the emergence of the "Alt-Right" movement in this country.
Morris has been criticized for not being tough enough on Bannon in this doc, but I say phooey. Morris not only calls Bannon "racist," "evil," and "scary" to his face, but he’s also there to counterbalance and debate him throughout.
I saw "American Dharma" at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and, suffice to say, I was floored by it, disturbed if you will, by its talking head Bannon. The film gives us credible evidence of a looming, impending, hell inevitable, civilian uprising that is about to occur in the country. And yet, the film hadn’t found a distributor for release until last month. Nobody wanted to touch it. Taking into account the fact that practically every film Morris has released in the last three decades has found a distributor and you can figure it out yourself why this film is being treated as a combustible firetorch.
The first thought I had as I was watching 'American Dharma' — and do understand I am no apologist — was how Steve Bannon came off as a rather intelligent man, whose words felt damn-near prophetic. He's hinting at a looming civil war coming in the United States, which, whether you're on the left or right side of politics, cannot and should not be shrugged off. We need to realize that all this division, this civil unrest, will not be gone tomorrow if Trump is impeached, or if Bannon is allowed to speak at Berkley; in fact, the censorship might just intensify people's rage.
Bannon's values and goals may be different from ours, but how does he differ from others who Morris has interviewed in the past? Why was there no backlash when Donald Rumsfeld was interviewed or Robert McNamara? Both were secretaries of defense for administrations that went into majorly unjust wars, where tens of thousands of people died due to these these corruptly catastrophic blunders. Has Bannon done such damage? Of course not. In fact, he hasn't taken a single life, but he is being vilified more than Rumsfeld and McNamara because the noose has been tightened all over the media spectrum these last few years. Total control of thought has been sped up by the powers that be, and there no longer are two sides to an argument in 2018's mainstream media dialogue: you're either with us or you're part of an incalculable evil that cannot even be described, because you've been programmed to not understand it.
Morris’ reputation is that of a titan of the non-fiction genre. He single-handedly redefined what the documentary could do with his 1988 film "The Thin Blue Line," and has continued to produce mesmerizing, important work such as "Gates of Heaven," "The Fog of War," "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control," and "Mr. Death."
Why can't Morris give us this legitimate work? It’s of course ridiculous and disgraceful. Errol Morris’ films are portraits of people who are interesting because they are outsiders, and they don't conform to the norms. Morris' films are investigative reports on these outside forces and the impact they have had on society. They are an opportunity for these people to make sense of themselves. Alas, we live in a world where audiences are being prohibited from thinking for themselves, therefore Morris’ inquisitive & unjudgemental ways of doing a portrait is now seen as a ‘thought crime’, but it’s actually the most valuable form of art.
“American Dharma” arrives in select theaters on November 1st.