It’s been exactly 20 years since Errol Morris made a name for himself with The Thin Blue Line, which served notice to the film world that documentaries could be stylish, confrontational, and highly interpretive. The use of dramatic reenactments, intense close-ups, animated graphics, dark humour, and hypnotic music scores—à la Philip Glass—have since become commonplace elements. (And, yes, Michael Moore, I am looking at you.)

Morris subsequently gave us A Brief History of Time and Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. More recently, there was Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr., a look at a Holocaust denier, and The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara, his study of the Vietnam War architect. The latter won the Oscar for best documentary in 2004.

His newest film, Standard Operating Procedure, takes the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs as its starting point—you know, those stomach-churning images of Pte. Lynndie England dragging a naked Iraqi by a dog collar, and more. Some people wonder if it’s too exculpatory of the Americans depicted.

”It’s part of my Pariah Trilogy,” Morris says with a laugh during a call from Dallas, Texas, where he is promoting his new film (which opens here on Friday [May 9] ). “Somebody said to me recently, ‘Errol, you only make movies about people who nobody likes.’ I guess there’s some truth to that. I’m interested in the Fred Leuchters and Robert McNamaras and Lynndie Englands of this world for what they have to tell us about ourselves.”

Morris is obviously aware that what these miscreants, at various levels of power, can convey is information that most people don’t want to know. In this case, the story rests more on Sabrina Harman, a female soldier who took many of the inflammatory pictures and ended up in prison for it.

“Many people, especially critics, tend to see this as a left-right issue. I see it as a scapegoating issue, as a fairness issue. I mean, what crime did Sabrina Harman actually commit? She’s in a picture with a dead Iraqi. How come the CIA interrogator who killed Manadel al-Jamadi, the Iraqi army officer in the photo, got to skate away?”

This brings up the question that most interests the filmmaker: what lies outside the photographs that caused all this trouble? You don’t see much of his investigation in the movie itself. (“I also know the name of that CIA interrogator.”) He’s readying that part for a companion book, some of which is running in a New York Times blog called Zoom and on his own Web site, at errolmorris.com/.

He’s always been a multimedia guy. To pay the bills, and also to influence popular culture, Morris has made many TV ads over the years, including cool, minimalistic spots for Nike, Levi’s, and others. In 2004, he shot a series of spots for the progressive group MoveOn.org, in which the main subject was people switching sides.

“It occurred to me at the time that the problem with America is that it has lost its middle. Everyone is entrenched in a position, and it becomes impossible to see another side unless you take the risk of crossing over.”

During his award-winning years, Morris has been able to meet movers and shakers of many political stripes. Two years before he nabbed his own Oscar, he made a short film full of people, famous and not, talking about their favourite movies.

“Yeah, I had Iggy Pop and Mikhail Gorbachev and Al Sharpton, and the most interesting thing was meeting Walter Cronkite and talking to him.”

When the subject of then-current politics came up, the iconic newsman (fave flick: The Front Page) was rendered speechless. “He just shook his head and looked around the room, as if to say, ‘What the hell happened?’ ”

What happened, Morris has concluded, is the 2000 election, in which the Supreme Court handed the American presidency to the man who lost the popular vote.

“Since then, people have lost confidence in all institutions. News organizations have either folded or thinned their ranks or are acting as propaganda tools of the government. Why is it that now, if you want to hear about current events, you have to go to the movies—or to Comedy Central?”

This thought reminds him of a previous trip to Texas, to work on another film. He was having breakfast at the Waco Hilton when Utah senator Orrin Hatch entered the room, followed by then–top White House advisor and political strategist Karl Rove.

“I somehow summoned the nerve to go over to their table and introduce myself as a documentary filmmaker. It was clear that Hatch had no idea who I was, but Rove visibly brightened when he heard my name. I couldn’t believe it when he said, ‘The Fog of War is one of my all-time favourite movies. I give it to my friends as a present.’ ”

Certainly that amount of irony was good for more than breakfast. And with any kind of luck, Bush’s brain will eventually be friendless enough to convince Morris to do a film about him.