In 'Control Room,' The Splitting Image Of War Coverage

Noujaim constructs her movie around several central episodes of the war: al-Jazeera's decision to show civilian casualties and the capture of American troops, the bombing by coalition forces of al-Jazeera's Baghdad office, which killed journalist Tariq Ayoub, and the fall of Baghdad, which profoundly demoralizes some of the al-Jazeera journalists.

Western journalists are presented as prey to distractions such as the Lynch rescue and mindless non-stories. When CentCom journalists are introduced to the famous deck of cards bearing pictures of top Iraqi leaders, there's desperation to get copies. But CentCom has none to offer, which leads to an apparently rare moment of confrontation between the reporters and the military.

"You kept hearing, 'This is a picture story,' " says Noujaim. "The cards were something that could be easily shown on television. All of the sudden their bosses were calling up. They don't want one station to get it before another. It felt crazy and absurd."

The choice of what to show, and what not to show, becomes the central issue facing both Western media and al-Jazeera. For Khader, the senior producer at al-Jazeera, his newsroom's focus on the humanitarian cost of the war was central to an Arab perspective that is, in journalistic terms, no less biased than an American perspective.

"You cannot think of a journalist in an abstract way," says Khader. "He is first of all a human being. He has his own mentality, his beliefs, the demands of his editorial line. The American media covered the war exactly like us."

Noujaim says that she edited her movie in Egypt and in the United States and that the contrast between the worlds became central to her understanding of the war.

"When I was [in Egypt] looking at footage of the dead and wounded, the kid in the hospital, of course we should have this in the film," she said.

"Then when I got back to the States, you turn on the television and everything feels very neat and clean and pristine, and all of the sudden you look at these images and they feel extremely violent. And you question, is it important to show these images?"

Rather than approach these different perspectives as an argument, with traditional journalist devices such as "some say" or "critics argue," she simply juxtaposed them -- which suggests a different standard of truth than that found in most journalistic accounts.

"The documentarian takes personal responsibility for what he shows," says Mark Jonathan Harris, an Oscar-winning documentary maker and a professor at the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California. "The journalist often hides behind a shield of anonymity or a shield of being 'fair and balanced.' "

Documentary makers such as Noujaim are benefiting, and to some degree suffering, from the "Michael Moore effect." Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" was the most successful documentary of its kind, and one of the distributors of "Fahrenheit 9/11" expects it to top all previous documentaries (it will open on 500 to 750 screens nationwide).

But there are concerns in the field -- concerns that sound very much like echoes of basic arguments about traditional journalistic ethics -- that Moore's op-ed style is untrustworthy and that it threatens the essential trust developed between a documentary maker, his subjects and his audience. But Moore has blazed a trail and, according to industry observers, his success has removed the stigma from the word "documentary."

The unlikely stars of Noujaim's film are now adapting to life with celebrity. Ibrahim has been recognized in a restaurant in Manhattan. Khader, when told that his remarks have been singled out by critics as among the movie's high points, responds in kind: "When somebody tells you that you are famous in the Arab world, you say, 'Where do I cash it?' " And Rushing has been silenced by the Marine Corps, which says he has been reassigned and won't be allowed to take questions about his role in "Control Room."

His wife, Paige Rushing, says that he is angry and disappointed and that after 14 years in the corps, he is now planning to leave. Of all the characters in Noujaim's film, he was the one who evolved and grew most, never wavering in his basic views but willing to listen.

"He feels he has something of consequence to say," says Paige Rushing. "This was a personal experience for him, and he feels that his opinion is relevant. He would love to share it." The Marine Corps says only that he is no longer working for CentCom and will not be allowed to speak.

Rushing's candor in the film led him to say things that may be deemed controversial, including a comparison of Fox News and al-Jazeera as simply two viewpoints at opposite ends of the same spectrum. What he does after the Marines is open, but, in the film, he said he might look into another controversial subject, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

"I don't think Americans are getting good information about it," he said. "I really don't."