Review of The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby (2011) by Susan W — 07 Jun 2014

I teach writing and my freshman students will read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, the story of a Hmong child who suffers from epilepsy, as did Colby's daughter. The connection between that book and this documentary is not epilepsy but what each reveals about how rotten things are in this state, the US.

Carl Colby created a portrait of great delicacy that is as much -- perhaps, more -- about his mother and the nature of both the CIA and the government in the second half of the 20th C as it is about his father.

In fact, despite the nearly two hours running time, we are less aware of who William Egan Colby was than we are of who his wife was. Whether director Carl purposefully lit the set and controlled his mother's make-up or whether her fading at the end of the film was due to taking her testimony in a single shot is a question I would ask Carl Colby.

For me, the true cost of being married to a "spymaster" showed in Barbara's face and her grooming. At the beginning of the film, she appears as a handsome and well-groomed older woman, typical of educated women of her generation.

She is dressed in an expensive brown suit, with perhaps a paisley pattern, with a yellowish blouse sometimes peeping from the neckline. Her face is calm and poised, colored only by delicate, pink lipstick.

The audience hears that she put her husband through law school. The audience hears that her husband's colleagues consider her the source of his success. The son describes them as a team. During her final appearance, her face seems heavier, the lines more obvious.

The delicate lavender-pink lipstick is almost gone, leaving her mouth crumbled in appearance. Through her faded lipstick, she announces how, after nearly 40 years of marriage, William Colby asked for a divorce.

Whether this brilliant symbolism was planned or accidental, the faded makeup of the loyal wife reveals how little anyone knew of this man who could smile on cue and testify before Congress (at a time when Congress was a strong and active participant in government) and say nothing.