Errol Morris “Will the Real Hooded Man Please Stand Up”
Filmmaker Errol Morris recently completed his second blog post devoted to the relationship of truth and photography. Entitled “Will the Real Hooded Man Please Stand Up,” he deconstructs a fascinating story that happened within the pages of the New York Times last year. The paper ran a profile of Ali Shalal Qaissi, the man under the cloak in the infamous Abu Ghraib photograph. The only problem was, that’s not who he was at all.
Morris is currently working on a film about those Abu Ghraib photos and the power they wield, so he’s in a unique spot to pen this essay, which I found very stimulating.
(Shalal Qaissi is unfortunately nicknamed “Clawman,” and is referred to as such throughout the article.)
one crucial aspect of the controversy – to my mind, the most crucial aspect – remained overlooked. Namely, the central role that photography itself played in the mistaken identification, and the way that photography lends itself to those errors and may even engender them.
Here is how I believe the error occurred. 1) Clawman claimed to be the man under the hood in the iconic photograph. This led to journalistic interest in him – no iconic photograph: little or no journalistic interest; 2) that same photograph was taken as partial proof of Clawman’s claim; and 3) lastly, that “proof” was further cemented in the minds of Times readers with a new photograph. The photo of a man holding a photo of the man in the iconic photo created an associative link much stronger than mere words might have. We see the man who purports to be the Hooded Man in a photograph, holding the Hooded Man photograph.
Years ago I became enamored with the writings of Norwood Russell Hanson, a philosopher and ex-fighter pilot who died at the age of 43 while flying his own plane to a lecture engagement at Cornell. Hanson, among others, pioneered the idea that observations in science are not independent of theory but are, on the contrary, quite dependent on it. In his book, “Patterns of Discovery,” published in 1958, he coined the term “theory-laden” and wrote: “there is more to seeing than meets the eye.” I would like to make an even stronger claim: Believing is seeing.