Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Robert McNamara
Directed By:
Errol Morris
The Fog Of War is Errol Morris' big movie. He was already a known director before, but this one made him. It won the Oscar for best Documentary in 2004. The feat of getting Robert McNamara, ex-secretary of defense, and make him talk about his life for almost two hours was quite something. But it's what Morris drew out of the ex-politician that was truly astounding. Without ever falling into easy sentimental crap, McNamara reexamines his career and the decisions that made him who he is in history books today. At the twilight of his life (he died in 2009, at a whopping ninety-three years old), he gives his output on the conflicts that made him famous, notably the Cuban missiles crisis and the Viet-Nam war. All of his speech is encapsulated under eleven lessons he learned through his life. Like the title implies, nothing is what it seems when it comes to war.
Errol Morris has this very unique way of making himself a part of his documentaries and yet, completely vanishing and leaving the floor to his subjects. The method he used in The Fog Of War is ingenious. yet very spare. McNamara speaks in front of a close-up camera , like he's being interrogated or interviewed for a job. You sometimes hear Morris asking a question, but not much. He establishes a strong intimacy with the once unreachable head of state. It gets to the viewer, because it gets to McNamara. You can see an intense fatigue in his traits and the camera is so close, you can almost feel McNamara's need to be understood and remembered as a human being. Whenever his family or his personal life is involved, his voice is breaking and his eyes are watering up. It has such a strong effect because that's the only thing on screen, McNamara's face. I know it sounds funny like that, but the emotional appeal is always very strong and never leaves silences empty and awkward.
But an emotional and sincere-looking old man might just be a lying old man. Or an old man that rearranges the truth to his liking, in order to make peace with himself before the big sleep. Conscious about this problem like any good documentarist should be, Errol Morris punctuates McNamara's soliloquy with archives footage and audio conversations. I'm not too sure about how it's possible to get a hold of audio conversations in between the president and the secretary of defense, but Morris sure played them in his movie. The tapes make a good job at shedding light on McNamara's point. He worked hand-in-hand with John F. Kennedy and prevented a nuclear war that was an inch away from happening. Most of his bad reputation, he acquired while working with Lyndon B. Johnson, with whom the communication was a lot more difficult. The Viet-Nam war was a point of conflict in between both, but most of the blame was rejected on McNamara, who has been called a cold and ruthless calculator many times over it.
McNamara sheds light on who he was during the "seven years of cold war that was his life" as he says, his tenure at the secretary of defense. He explains his military upbringing under the ruthless Curtis Lemay and how it influenced his perception of war. His tenure was surprisingly marked by an optimism and a genuine, rational attempt at peace. But like he says in his second lesson: "Rationality will not save us". That's the nature of war right there. No matter how rational and well-meaning people can be, mankind's egocentric and destructive nature cannot be changed. People will start killing each other if they can get any gain out of it. Much fuss has been made about his unforgiving and inflexible nature, but the truth is that he's only one man and it takes more than one man to start a war. I'm not saying he was misunderstood or trying to apologize for some of his decision, but The Fog Of War deliver what it promises. The grey zone that Robert McNamara lived in.
SCORE: 84%
Errol Morris has this very unique way of making himself a part of his documentaries and yet, completely vanishing and leaving the floor to his subjects. The method he used in The Fog Of War is ingenious. yet very spare. McNamara speaks in front of a close-up camera , like he's being interrogated or interviewed for a job. You sometimes hear Morris asking a question, but not much. He establishes a strong intimacy with the once unreachable head of state. It gets to the viewer, because it gets to McNamara. You can see an intense fatigue in his traits and the camera is so close, you can almost feel McNamara's need to be understood and remembered as a human being. Whenever his family or his personal life is involved, his voice is breaking and his eyes are watering up. It has such a strong effect because that's the only thing on screen, McNamara's face. I know it sounds funny like that, but the emotional appeal is always very strong and never leaves silences empty and awkward.
But an emotional and sincere-looking old man might just be a lying old man. Or an old man that rearranges the truth to his liking, in order to make peace with himself before the big sleep. Conscious about this problem like any good documentarist should be, Errol Morris punctuates McNamara's soliloquy with archives footage and audio conversations. I'm not too sure about how it's possible to get a hold of audio conversations in between the president and the secretary of defense, but Morris sure played them in his movie. The tapes make a good job at shedding light on McNamara's point. He worked hand-in-hand with John F. Kennedy and prevented a nuclear war that was an inch away from happening. Most of his bad reputation, he acquired while working with Lyndon B. Johnson, with whom the communication was a lot more difficult. The Viet-Nam war was a point of conflict in between both, but most of the blame was rejected on McNamara, who has been called a cold and ruthless calculator many times over it.
McNamara sheds light on who he was during the "seven years of cold war that was his life" as he says, his tenure at the secretary of defense. He explains his military upbringing under the ruthless Curtis Lemay and how it influenced his perception of war. His tenure was surprisingly marked by an optimism and a genuine, rational attempt at peace. But like he says in his second lesson: "Rationality will not save us". That's the nature of war right there. No matter how rational and well-meaning people can be, mankind's egocentric and destructive nature cannot be changed. People will start killing each other if they can get any gain out of it. Much fuss has been made about his unforgiving and inflexible nature, but the truth is that he's only one man and it takes more than one man to start a war. I'm not saying he was misunderstood or trying to apologize for some of his decision, but The Fog Of War deliver what it promises. The grey zone that Robert McNamara lived in.
SCORE: 84%