DVD Review: The Fog of War by Errol Morris
Oscar-Winning Documentary Spotlights Cold Warrior Robert S. McNamara
In recent decades, filmmaker Errol Morris almost singlehandedly re-energized the documentary form with fascinating films including The Thin Blue Line and A Brief History of Time.
McNamara Thoughtful in Film
In this 2003 study of a somewhat chastened cold warrior, Morris uses a vast array of archival footage, rare White House audio recordings and clever visuals to augment then 85-year-old McNamara's first-person relfections on his life and career. The result combines a McNamara autobiography with a study of war in general and the Vietnam experience in particular.
McNamara's tone throughout is thoughtful. "My rule," he says early on, "has been, 'Try to learn. Try to understand what happened. Develop the lessons and pass them on.'" It's hard to square this reflective McNamara with the notoriously cocksure Defense secretary vilified during the seven years he oversaw American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Right from the start, McNamara speaks directly into camera. Morris' unseen presence as off-camera interviewer is occasional and fleeting. The point here is that McNamara is the story.
McNamara the Good Soldier Under Gen. LeMay
There's a nice sense of honesty, too, due to constant jump cuts. They show viewers Morris is not juxtaposing sound bites to play with meaning. He's simply cut out needless verbiage and tangents, so that McNamara's points are more sharply presented.
Through a nice use of family snapshots and newsreel footage, we learn of McNamara's early life after World War I. Then it's on to his school days; an early academic career at Harvard; the tumultuous years serving under hawk-of-hawks Gen. Curtis LeMay in World War II; his rise to the presidency of Ford Motor Co.; and offers by incoming President Kennedy to be Secretary of the Treasury (he declined), then Defense (which he hesitantly accepted.)
The film's structure is defined by McNamara's 11 "Lessons of War," which serve as starting points for anecdotes, explanations and philosophical monologues about the morality of war, or the lack thereof.
Cuban Missile Crisis Detailed by Insider
For example, Lesson 1 is "Empathize with your enemy." McNamara describes how, during the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy White House struggled to get inside the heads of both Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban strongman Fidel Castro.
In Lesson 4, "Maximize efficiency," McNamara coolly describes his strategic role in the devastating firebombing of Tokyo and other key Japanese targets during World War II.
In the fifth lesson, "Proportionality should be a guideline in war," the former cabinet secretary admits he and others were beyond ruthless in their prosecution of those bombing raids. "LeMay said if we'd lost the war," McNamara declares, "we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right."
It would be a disservice to casually summarize McNamara's reflections on Vietnam, often called "McNamara's War." But consider the titles of Lesson 7 -- "Belief and seeing are both often wrong" -- and Lesson 8, "Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning."
McNamara Cops Out
McNamara describes his persistent disillusion with Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the war. But the scent of cop-out creeps in when McNamara is asked whether he felt he was the author of the Vietnam tragedy: "I just felt that I was serving at the request of the president, who had been elected by the American people, and it was my responsibility to try to help him carry out the office as he believed was in the interests of our people."
Near the end, Morris gives him the opportunity to explain why, after he left the Johnson Administration in 1968, he didn't speak out against the war. "I'm not going to say any more than I have," he declares. "These are the kinds of questions that get me in trouble. You don't know what I know about how inflammatory my words can appear."
From off camera, Morris asks him if he feels misunderstood, or even guilty, about his role in prosecuting the war so zealously and deliberately misleading the country throughout. McNamara steadfastly refuses to say, insisting it "opens up more controversy" and is too complex for tit-for-tat discourse. But he defends obfuscating the truth -- saying he enjoyed dodging questions. Gee, what a shock.
The tragedy of Robert S. McNamara thus is revealed: his loyalty to a president he admitted he loved (Johnson) was at the cost of his own integrity.
That's the lesson he didn't learn.
The film runs a swift 107 minutes, and includes some intriguing special features, including the former Defense secretary's 10 Lessons From a Life in Politics. There also are two dozen additional scenes that didn't make the release cut.
The DVD from Sony Pictures Classics is widely available.
Robert S. McNamara
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