Potent Cocktail Of Drama And Documentary Explores A Mysterious Death: 'Wormwood'
Filmmaker Errol Morris employs fictional techniques — and famous actors — in this 241-minute meditation on the demise of a CIA operative in 1953 that left a son obsessed with finding answers.
What is known for sure about American military scientist Frank Olson is that on November 28, 1953, the bacteriologist and father of three plunged to his death from the thirteenth floor of the Statler hotel in New York City, not long after he was secretly drugged with LSD on the orders of his CIA superior. Whether Olson was pushed, or jumped, or was nudged into committing suicide remains unclear. But indeterminacy with a generous side of conspiracy is catnip to director Errol Morris, who has made either a
