The maxim goes that the truth will set you free, but the search for that truth can be a prison. The abyss and darkness of unknowing can be a heavy shroud to shoulder. Throughout his career, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris have revelled in throwing light on strange stories or investigating figures who have made curious chapters in history. However, “Wormwood” marks something new for the director, where his pursuit of the story is the story. While the lengthy, four hour narrative — which can be enjoyed in six parts on Netflix, or as a full meal in cinemas — brings plenty of intrigue to the table, delving into the CIA, mind-control, and government cover up, it’s really about one man whose decades long fight to find out what happened to his father has come to define his entire life.
On November 28, 1953 Frank Olson died following a plunge out the window of his thirteenth-floor hotel room at the Hotel Statler in New York City. That much is certain, but everything else about that night and the days and weeks leading up to the incident has been subject to scrutiny ever since. It was only over two decades later, when knowledge of the MKUltra program became public, that the family learned that Olson, who worked for the CIA, was surreptitiously dosed with LCD by his supervisor, during a retreat. Further digging would reveal that it was recommended that Olson, who was behaving erratically, be institutionalized to recover — so then why was a person in such an emotionally fragile state booked on the thirteenth floor of a hotel? Then there’s even the verbiage surrounding Olson’s death — was it a fall, or more sinisterly, was he pushed? If Olson did take his own life, the Hotel Statler doesn’t have window ledges, so he would’ve literally had to dive through the window.
These questions and inconsistencies following the sudden passing of his father have haunted Eric Olson since he was a child. Years upon years of research, lawsuits, and press conferences have inched Eric toward a full understanding of exactly what transpired, and each layer that unfolds is utterly fascinating and equally strange. That’s undoubtedly what helped Morris latch onto this story, along with the fact that Eric — who is the lead talking head across all 256 minutes — is a brilliant raconteur. Witty and self-aware, Eric intimately describes his own feelings each step of the way, but is also able to stand back and be as awed as the viewer with each revelation. He remains tickled that he can claim to be one of the few ordinary citizens of the United States who has been inside the Oval Office and the executive levels of the CIA headquarters. Morris, who ditches his Interrotron interview technique, is also clearly taken with Eric, appearing on camera, deeply engaged, leading him through each turn of the story.
Though the material alone is compelling, the documentary is a dazzling stylistic feat. Morris brings a staggering array of archival material — photos, newspaper clippings, news reels, and even old cinema segments — to accompany Eric’s storytelling, with editor Steven Hathaway stitching the dense footage together admirably. Additionally, Morris sometimes employs up to ten different camera angles on Eric simultaneously, emphasizing the fragmentary nature of the clues that emerge. Meanwhile, Paul Leonard-Morgan does his best impression of Philip Glass (who has scored three Morris pictures) for the perfectly paranoid score. However, “Wormwood” stumbles slightly when it comes to adding live-action recreations.
Peter Sarsgaard plays Frank Olson, and as Eric relates each version of events his family has been given by the authorities, we see it dramatized. When the technique is effective, it underscores the illusionary nature of the various lies the Olson family have been fed, but when it doesn’t work, the scenes can often feel redundant. There is also the question of why the terrific Molly Parker is mostly wasted in a largely non-speaking role as Frank’s wife Alice. The actress’ presence alone is commanding, but it becomes quickly apparent she’s given nothing to work with. Inadvertently, this winds up highlighting Morris’ biggest missed opportunity — diving into the emotional wreckage the Olsons have endured since Frank’s death. “Wormwood” is more concerned with its intellectual and philosophical musings on the intangibility everything about this case represents, but it comes at the cost of an emotional impact that’s always just beneath the surface.
The running time itself doubles as metaphor for just how long Eric — who has taken the mantle of the family’s primary, and only, investigator — has wrestled with Frank’s death. It’s clearly suggested that his own personal and professional aspirations have suffered in a pursuit threaded with dead ends and endless unanswered questions. However, these non-documentary portions sometimes bog down what is at other times a breathless pace, and do little to shed light on cumulative toll this has all had on the Olson family.
While at Harvard, Eric began studying “the collage method” as it relates to psychiatric therapy, which he says could serve as “a sort of antitoxin for psychic trauma.” Here’s how he explains it on his website:
The lattice-work of images in a collage readily suggests a maze in which one becomes lost or trapped. But the collage-process—the sequence of operations by which a collage is made and transformed—suggests a developmental spiral. A spiral is the form that, in Sartre’s words, enables one to “pass again and again by the same points, but at different levels of integration and complexity.”
Both Eric’s own life and “Wormwood” are a collage, configuring and reconfiguring the elements and enigmas surrounding Frank Olson’s death. However, Eric still remains trapped in a permanent past and fixed present, as the truth continues to be elusive, with a future beyond this case hard to fathom. The greatest horror in “Wormwood” isn’t that the government tested drugs on its own people and the citizens of the United States, or engaged in a vast cover-up, but that Eric might have to live with never knowing the answer about what really happened to his father. At one point, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh tells Eric he might be better served letting this all go. The bracing truth that “Wormwood” ultimately uncovers, is that may prove to be impossible. [B]