Ebert on Morris' SOP

Interesting blog entry about pictures and context in Morris's new documentary, Standard Operating Procedure:

But listen to the words in the screen. The people in the photographs are as puzzled as we are. They did things they might not have done under other circumstances, and yet were blindsided by this particular set of circumstances. The wisest statement in the film (however obvious) is by the prison guard Javel Davis, who says, "Pictures only show you a fraction of a second. You don't see forward and you don't see backward. You don't see outside the frame." You don't see why these Americans enlisted in the military or the National Guard, you don't see their training, you don't see their experiences, you don't see how Iraq changed them. They seem to wonder about these things themselves. We look at old photos of ourselves and wonder why we ever wore that shirt, or combed our hair that way. When did I stop using Brylcreem? Why was I that person?> Still more does Lynndie England wonder how, at 20, she found herself in photographs from Abu Ghraib, pointing to a man forced (not by herself) to masturbate.