But then Morris also includes recurring fictionalized sequences - not the generic reenactments we tend to find in average cable documentaries, but artful scripted pieces featuring well-known actors, led by Peter Sarsgaard as Frank Olson.
A hybrid blend of documentary and Cold War thriller that makes The B-Side, Morris's loving portrait of radical photographer Elsa Dorfman earlier this year, look almost straightforward.
There are times when you might question whether six hours was necessary to tell this particular story - I often wonder that about Netflix productions - but there's never a moment where Olson or Morris fail to fascinate.
Wormwood is more concerned with its intellectual and philosophical musings on the intangibility everything about this case represents, but it comes at the cost of an emotional impact that's always just beneath the surface.
Their testimonies unfolds alongside a series of dramatic reenactments that may or may not illustrate the precise nature of the events being described. The result is a documentary-fiction combination like nothing seen before.
