Errol Morris on ‘ordeal’ of seeing ‘Wormwood’

As a prelude to its Doc Stories film festival, which begins Thursday, Nov. 2, the San Francisco Film Society hosted an advance screening of Errol Morris’ new “Wormwood” at the Vogue Theater on Thursday, Oct. 26. A pre-screening reception at Osteria presented an opportunity to speak with him, but I always feel like a bonehead if I haven’t seen the film first, for which I apologized. “You don’t want to see the movie,” he said. “It corrupts everything.”

“Wormwood,” a four-hour-long Netflix movie, is about murder, politics, spies, drugs, warfare, cover-ups, intrigue, a son’s love for his father and his obsessive quest to figure out how he died. The father, CIA operative Frank Olson, died in 1953 after “falling” out a window 13 stories up in a New York hotel. That first story of his death (suicide) was covered up by the second story ... and then there is a third. “It’s a story about how the government lies to us,” said Morris. “We should have known that from the beginning.” In the aftermath of World War II, said the filmmaker, there arose “entire groups of the government devoted to misinformation. It’s a story about ... us and where we find ourselves now.”

At a Q&A session afterward, reports Ruthe Stein, the Chronicle’s senior movie correspondent, Morris proclaimed himself lucky anyone was still in the theater. He had said at the reception that the conclusion the movie reaches is about government lying. As to whether the mystery itself is solved, “I still don’t know what the story is.”

You will have noted that Stein (above) stayed for the Q&A. I watched the whole doc, then scurried home for R&R before making my way the next morning to the Berkeleyside-founded “Uncharted, the Berkeley Festival Ideas,” where by 8:30 a.m., live music by the La Macchia Trio was playing, coffee and pastries from the PIQ Bakery were being served and folks were gathering. The mood of friendly anticipation was that of the first day of school in the gifted and talented class.

First session was “Death 101,” a conversation between Jessica Zitter and Amy Tobin about how we deal with death; followed by festival co-founder Helena Brantley talking with Mychal Denzel Smith, author of “Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching,” about “How do you learn to be a black man in America?”

“Let’s talk about something more uplifting than that,” Smith began. “Let’s talk about racism.” Both Brantley and Smith are black (a term they prefer to African American), and she expressed huge admiration for him. But in endeavoring to talk about race, it was as if they were each dancing to a separate rhythm. She was reverent. But “I am so burned out,” said Smith, sharing views — “Barack Obama made it to the Mount Rushmore of black America” — as sharp as oneliners. “We have to stop looking for saviors.”

In similar vein, on Saturday, Oct. 28, the YBCA 100 Summit welcomed and paid homage to artists and thinkers that Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Chief of Program and Pedagogy Marc Bamuthi Joseph referred to as “sexy-ass brainiacs.” They showed up for Saturday’s gathering raring to go. Talks, performances and idea-sharing were based on the operating principle doing and thinking went hand in hand. From the eager response to the session I attended, the strategy worked.

That’s not to say, though, that Americans could be redefined in a few hours, or that a patch be sewn that would connect all communities — rich and poor — to each other through media. It is to say, though, that there were so many sincere thoughts floated, so many questions asked, that it seemed anything was possible.

Jose Maria Vargas spoke on immigration; Malkia Cyril spoke on media justice/equity. Then they returned to the stage for a discussion, led by Mac Arthur winning choreographer and educator Liz Lerman. She was discussing how “to blow up the idea of the master narrative” when she turned to Cyril for response.

“I’m just trying to figure out how to sit in this chair,” said Cyril. The moderator nodded solemnly, and turned to the audience as though presenting the wisdom gleaned in the moment. “It’s all in the body,” she said, as though how to sit was a metaphor for world change.

I came away thinking about immigration and access to media ... and there was lots more program after I left. But sometimes high-flying rhetoric just needs some down-home kvetching.

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING “Australia got the convicts. America got the Puritans.” British man in line at Cora’s Kitchen in Santa Monica, overheard by Dan Giesin