“Taxi to the Dark Side” Wins
By SusanUnPC on February 25, 2008 at 12:01 AM in Taxi to the Dark Side
It was a great thrill to see this brave film win for Best Documentary. “Taxi To the Dark Side” tells the horrific true story that is “an in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan [Dilawar] who was tortured and killed in 2002.”
Director Alex Gibney accepted the Oscar, dedicating the award to Dilawar and to his father, a Navy interrogator who urged him to make the movie and talk about the need for our country to return to the rule of law.
The executive producer of the documentary is Sidney Blumenthal, the longtime journalist and author who is an unpaid adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign. I had no idea he was the executive producer until a friend called me with the news — the friend had looked it up, and spotted Blumenthal’s name, then called me, knowing I was reading his book about his years as a Senior Adviser to the Clinton presidency.
Last December, I wrote about this documentary here at NoQuarter because Washington Note blogger Steve Clemons had gone to a special screening with Lawrence Wilkerson and others, and wrote compelling posts about the experience:
From my December post quoting Steve Clemons’ Washington Note:
(1) “The Horror. . .The Horror: Torture Up Close and Pondering the Blowback”
(2) “Alex Gibney: This Film is About the Corruption of the American Character”
EVENING UPDATES:
(1) “[T]he Senate-House Intelligence Conference voted today to make the Army Field Manual the standard for all detainee issues in interrogation and detention methods — or ‘the law of the land’ as my source told me. That means for the CIA and all branches of the national security, military, and intelligence establishment.” – Steve Clemons, The Washington Note
(2) Tomorrow, Steve Clemons will write about “the powerful and disturbing film Taxi to the Dark Side and the discussion we had this evening with director Alex Gibney, former FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan, former Abu Ghraib and Bergram* military intelligence interrogator Damian Corsetti, and former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson.” (I remember the story of the horrific, incalculably cruel torture and murder of the hapless, innocent Afghan taxi driver, but didn’t know a documentary has been filmed, with interviews of several military personnel.) The documentary’s creator also did Enron.
The author of Salon‘s review, “Beyond the Multiplex,” notes that the documentary’s creator hoped that showing how the “[Bush] administration has eviscerated the Constitution, and abandoned basic tenets of human rights and human dignity, [would provoke] some constructive rage. But right there on the sidewalk, my rage was not constructive. I wanted to get stinking drunk in some dead-end bar. …” U.S. premiere dates via IMDB: 11 January 2008 (New York City, New York) and 18 January 2008 (Los Angeles, California).
[*Susan's Note: I think Steve meant to type Bagram, the base in Afghanistan where the taxi driver was beaten for days before he died.]
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
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.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
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