the fog of war finally reached philadelphia this weekend. i have been a big fan of errol morris for several years now, but this film is particularly well timed and so it has gotten more press than his prior films. (the oscar nomination didn't hurt either). the film is a profile of robert mcnamara, secretary of defense during the cuban missile crisis and the first half of the vietnam war. almost the entire movie consists of mcnamara talking. but this was not a boring monologue. morris' amazing technique glued me to the screen, even the narrative jumped backwards and forwards in time.
mcnamara made no comment on any current events, but occasionally things he said really resonated throughout the theater. at one point, he commented on why vietnam was such a disaster stating (and i am paraphrasing from memory): "when the u.s. goes to war without the support of our allies--the countries that share our values--we should rethink our policies to make sure we are not making a mistake."
mcnamara, of course, was vilified by the anti-war crowd during the vietnam war as an arrogant number-crunching secretary of defense. and the film certainly shows there was some truth to that. throughout the film, i was struck by how the older footage of mcnamara reminded me of donald rumsfeld. the clippings of contemporaneous news articles all contained descriptions of mcnamara that could easily apply to our current defense secretary. mcnamara even looks a little like rumsfeld.
but most of the movie was footage from morris' recent interview with mcnamara. and in those scenes, the 80-something former secretary seems to have been taken down a peg or two. by no means is he humble; he readily volunteers his academic and other achievements. and while he get's choked up with emotion when talking about kennedy's death, he talks casually about incinerating 100,000 japanese civilians in world war ii. perhaps some of the detached mcnamara survives. nevertheless, the modern mcnamara clearly is no longer the arrogant young cabinet member he once was. though he is not humble, he has been humbled to some extent. he knows his policies in vietnam did not turn out well and as a result a lot of people were killed and wounded. at the end when he is finally asked point blank whether he regrets how he presided over the vietnam war, he simply refuses to answer the question, giving the distinct impression that the answer is yes.
documentaries like this are not for everyone. it assumes that the viewer has some basic background knowledge about the cuban missile crisis and vietnam and does not try to balance what mcnamara says with any other voices (although at times the images on the screen are the counter-argument). but i loved it.
meanwhile, i look forward to kirk's upcoming interview with errol morris at american amnesia.
