First Person — Season 1, Episode 10: The Little Gray Man
Documentary, News • 24 min • 2 seasons, 19 episodes • ★ 8.3/10
Episode synopsis
For 25 years Antonio Mendez worked as a secret agent for the CIA. He led two lives. To his friends he was a bureaucrat working for the American Ministry of Defense, but to the CIA he was the master of disguise. He could become whoever, wherever, at any time. To keep his identity hidden he had to stay gray and boring to his friends and to himself.
About First Person
First Person was an American TV series produced and directed by Errol Morris. The show engaged a varied group of individuals from civil advocates to criminals. Interviews were conducted with "The Interrotron", a device similar to a teleprompter: Errol and his subject each sit facing a camera. The image of each person's face is then projected onto a two-way mirror positioned in front of the lens of the other's camera. Instead of looking at a blank lens, then, both Morris and his subject are looking directly at a human face. Morris believes that the machine encourages monologue in the interview process, while also encouraging the interviewees to "express themselves to camera".