Released in 2018, American Dharma blindsided its director. Errol Morris had spend decades making some of the universally acclaimed documentaries of all time. This time, however, the press wasn’t having it, accusing the filmmaker of “platforming” his subject, Steve Bannon, or at very least, never pushing back hard enough against Trump’s political strategist. In many ways, however, the documentary is quintessential Morris, built around 16 hours of interviews with a single subject. It’s territory he perfect with films like The Fog of War and and The Unknown Known, exploring controversial figures Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld. Two years into the Trump presidency, however, it’s clear the wounds were still to fresh, a fact that the filmmaker has, to some degree, come to grips with. Tied together with footage from classic war films — a passion shared by Morris and Bannon — the film offers rare insight into one of the most influential and damaging political figures of his era.
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