The Unknown Known
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''The Unknown Known'' (also known as ''The Unknown Known: The Life and Times of Donald Rumsfeld'') is a 2013 American
documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
about the political career of former U.S. Secretary of Defense and congressman Donald Rumsfeld, directed by
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
winning documentarian and filmmaker
Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamar ...
. The film is a summary of 33 hours of interviews that Morris conducted with Rumsfeld over eleven separate sessions during visits to
Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...
. The film was released on April 4, 2014, by
Radius-TWC The Weinstein Company (usually credited or abbreviated as TWC) was an American independent film studio, founded in New York City by Bob Weinstein, Bob and Harvey Weinstein in March 2005. TWC was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North ...
and is dedicated to the memory of Roger Ebert.


Synopsis

The major portion of the film is spent addressing excerpts from the countless memos, nicknamed 'Yellow Perils' by his first Pentagon staff and 'Snowflakes' by the second, that Rumsfeld wrote during his time as a congressman and advisor to four different presidents, twice as
United States Secretary of Defense The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high ranking member of the federal cabinet. DoDD 5100.1: Enclosure 2: a The ...
. It also focuses on a response Rumsfeld gave to a question at a
U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
news briefing on February 12, 2002, about the lack of evidence linking the
government of Iraq The federal government of Iraq is defined under the current Constitution, approved in 2005, as an Islamic, democratic, federal parliamentary republic. The federal government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as w ...
with the supply of
weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...
to terrorist groups. The content of the memos are varied, covering everything from the aftermath of Watergate, to the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, to the definition of the word "
terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
". Morris returns to the motif of snowflakes swirling within a
globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...
throughout the documentary as he discusses the memos with Rumsfeld, the contents of which the Defense Secretary allowed him limited access to while preparing the film, and several of which Rumsfeld agrees to read aloud on camera. At the beginning of the documentary, Rumsfeld argues that a major purpose of the Department of Defense is to evaluate "unknown knowns," or "the things you think you know, that it turns out you did not," to anticipate hostile actions before they take place. Illustrating his point, Rumsfeld suggests that the failure of the United States to anticipate the
attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...
was a failure of imagination. As the interviews proceed, the director attempts to present several contradictions of fact and past statements. Rumsfeld does not always directly acknowledge, or engage in deeper discourse, and at times deflects the points raised — according to various editorials. Though, when the director asks him about lessons he learnt from the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
, for example, Rumsfeld straightforwardly states: "Some things work out, some things don’t; that didn’t." Rumsfeld also expresses good-natured surprise at the recognition of a list of successful torture techniques — including hooding, stress positions, and nudity — that he personally approved for use on Guantánamo detainees, stating, "Good grief! That’s a pile of stuff!" In follow up, Morris questions him about the so-called "
Torture Memos A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" (officially the Memorandum Regarding Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside The United States) were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the ...
" describing enhanced interrogation techniques. When Rumsfeld indicates that he never read them, Morris responds in disbelief, "Really?" When asked if the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
was a mistake, Rumsfeld replies, "I guess time will tell." In the penultimate scene, Morris questions him again about "unknown knowns," and the definition given by Rumsfeld has inverted, a discongruence the director is quick to point out, and which Rumsfeld acknowledges: "unknown knowns" are "things that you know, that you don't know you know." As the documentary closes, Morris asks Rumsfeld why he agreed to the interviews. Rumsfeld responds, "That is a vicious question. I'll be darned if I know."


Cast

* Donald Rumsfeld as (interviewee) himself * Errol Morris as (interviewer, voice) himself * Kenn Medeiros as younger Donald Rumsfeld / Secret Service


Release

''The Unknown Known'' was screened in the main competition section at the
70th Venice International Film Festival The 70th annual Venice International Film Festival took place in Venice, Italy from 28 August to 7 September 2013. American film director William Friedkin was presented with a lifetime achievement award. Italian film director Bernardo Bertoluc ...
, and premiered at the
Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022. History First held on 30 August 1974, t ...
on August 29, 2013.


Critical reception

On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
the documentary has an approval rating of 82% based on 105 reviews with an average rating of 6.81/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Viewers hoping to see Donald Rumsfeld admit making mistakes in public office may find ''The Unknown Known'' frustrating – but no less fascinating." On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". David Denby of ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' wrote, "If Morris doesn’t quite nail Rumsfeld, his questions lead the Secretary to nail himself. You watch him obfuscate, fudge the issue of torture, smirk about George H. W. Bush (whom he doesn’t like), and offer dull commonplaces when impassioned clarity is called for." Mary Corliss of''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' wrote, "Morris's movie is a cat-and-mouse game, and Rumsfeld is the cat, virtually licking his chops as he toys with, and then devours, another rival." Colin Colvert of the ''
Minneapolis Star Tribune The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...
'' wrote, "Morris is admirably evenhanded, never demonizing his subject, but giving him enough rope to hang himself. Rumsfeld, cool and bemused, refuses to knot the noose."


Comparisons to ''The Fog of War''

Several reviews of the documentary compare it to Morris's
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning predecessor, ''
The Fog of War ''The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara'' is a 2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, illustrating his observations of the nature of modern warfa ...
'' (2003), with the follow-up being described as a "spiritual sequel". The earlier documentary is about
Robert McNamara Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the ...
, the longest serving U.S. Secretary of Defense, with Rumsfeld being the second. Both are film interviews of former Defense Secretary octogenarians who were dismissed prematurely from their posts, and who discuss their roles as the voice of some of the most unpopular wars in recent American history – for McNamara,
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
and for Rumsfeld,
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
. At one point, Morris asks Rumsfeld, "Have you seen ''The Fog of War''? What do you think about that?" to which Rumsfeld responds, "I hate it. That man had nothing to apologize for." Morris himself has been resistant to comparisons, stating "You can’t call this ‘''The Fog of War 2''.’ I can’t imagine two individuals more unalike."


See also

* Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse * Electoral history of Donald Rumsfeld * Enhanced interrogation techniques *
Epistemic modal logic Epistemic modal logic is a subfield of modal logic that is concerned with reasoning about knowledge. While epistemology has a long philosophical tradition dating back to Ancient Greece, epistemic logic is a much more recent development with applic ...
* Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration * Gerald Ford * George H. W. Bush *
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
* Guantanamo Bay detention camp * ''
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ''Hamdan v. Rumsfeld'', 548 U.S. 557 (2006), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both the Uniform Code of Mili ...
'' *
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
* '' Known and Unknown: A Memoir'' *
List of United States Secretaries of Defense by time in office The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high ranking member of the federal cabinet. DoDD 5100.1: Enclosure 2: a The se ...
*
National Security Strategy (United States) The National Security Strategy (NSS) is a document prepared periodically by the executive branch of the United States that lists the national security concerns and how the administration plans to deal with them. The legal foundation for the docum ...
*
Overseas interventions of the United States The United States has been involved in numerous foreign interventions throughout its history. By the broadest definition of military intervention, the US has engaged in nearly 400 military interventions between 1776 and 2019, with half of these ...
* '
There are known knowns "There are unknown unknowns" is a phrase from a response United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave to a question at a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) news briefing on February 12, 2002, about the lack of evidence linking the gov ...
' *
Torture Memos A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" (officially the Memorandum Regarding Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside The United States) were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the ...
*
United States Secretary of Defense The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high ranking member of the federal cabinet. DoDD 5100.1: Enclosure 2: a The ...
*
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...


References


External links

* * * *
''The Unknown Known''
at RogerEbert.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Unknown Known 2013 films 2013 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about American politicians Films directed by Errol Morris Films produced by Errol Morris HanWay Films films Films scored by Danny Elfman Donald Rumsfeld 2010s English-language films 2010s American films