Review
Review Date: 1-February-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK
The Fog of War (2003)
Robert S. McNamara, WW II veteran, former Harvard professor and Secretary of Defense, is entirely the kind of person I would like to have dinner with. Articulate, educated, introspective, and self-assured (and still sharp as a tack in his eighties), he has many interesting memories to share. Little wonder, then, that acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris attempted to bring his stories to the big screen at a time when the tumultuous 20th century already seems to be fading into history. The resulting film, "The Fog of War," attests to the intelligence and talents of both men, but, unfortunately, leaves too much of its subject unexamined to do either one of them justice.
Born into modest means in 1916, McNamara followed his brilliant mind to a fast track in academia before joining the Air Force and heading overseas during World War II. He later stepped down as head of the Ford Motor Company at the summons of President Kennedy. (Eager to have him on board, Kennedy dispatched brother Robert to offer McNamara first the Treasury, and then, if that didn't suit him, Defense.) Through Kennedy's presidency and into Lyndon Johnson's, McNamara applied his analytical skills to the weighty matters of communism, the Cold War, and Vietnam. Although he professes to have held Johnson in esteem, he admits that they never saw eye-to-eye on the latter issue, which eventually led to McNamara's stepping down from his post in 1968.
Morris structures "The Fog of War" around eleven lessons that McNamara learned during his long life in the front lines of American conflict (e.g., sometimes you have to do evil to do good). This format appears to have been suggested by McNamara himself, who states that he has looked back on his experiences and drawn conclusions from them. But in this instance, as elsewhere, the subject's exertion of his own will dampens the power of the film. Like the expert politician he grew to be, he only discusses what he wants to discuss and reveals what he wants to reveal. (If I'm damned if I do [spill my guts] and damned if I don't, he says, I'd rather be damned if I don't.) So while he does elaborate on some interesting topics, such as the US' brutal firebombing of Japan in 1945, he sidesteps others, such as his personal life and the extent and consequences of his role in the Vietnam War. This is all the more frustrating because what McNamara does reveal of himself clearly shows someone worthy of close inspection. Does he have the right to avoid specifics on how his job adversely affected his wife and children? Yes. Does this reticence make for a good documentary? No.
Morris usually goes beyond the no-frills, point-and-shoot style, but here his artistic touches seem overdone, as if he's trying to compensate for the fact that his subject cannot be pinned down. "The Fog of War" contains some amazing bombing footage, both untouched and nicely stylized, and a lot of suggestive newsreels of a grinning, cocky McNamara, but it beats the same slo-mo scenes of imperiled humanity and the domino effect half to death. With these images and Philip Glass' ominous score, Morris tries to communicate that McNamara's life carries a grave, universal significance, but it's hard to move beyond the history lesson and take the message to heart when the man himself is so unwilling to let us identify with him. (Also, as someone who transcribes oral histories for fun, I must take issue with the sloppy, inexact subtitles that accompany the snippets of White House communications. If LBJ takes six words to make his point, why only show five?)
Theoretically, Robert McNamara is an excellent subject for a documentary or biography (of which there are apparently several), but "The Fog of War" left me wanting more. It's as if we did sit down to a promising dinner together, but he left while the soup was still hot.
Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.
