{"id":47422,"date":"2003-12-21T13:32:00","date_gmt":"2003-12-21T18:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=47422"},"modified":"2020-04-25T13:34:55","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T17:34:55","slug":"review-the-fog-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2003\/12\/21\/review-the-fog-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: THE FOG OF WAR"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>During the turbulent 1960s, no figure was perhaps more controversial than former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. A polarizing figure, hailed as a genius by some while regarded by others as a con man or madman, McNamara oversaw the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam first for President John Kennedy and then for his successor, Lyndon Johnson.<\/p>\n

But whether genius or madman, sinner or saint, McNamara was a key witness to some of the most tumultuous and key moments of the 1960s and as such, has unique insight into that decade. This is what makes the documentary The Fog Of War: Eleven Lessons From The Life Of Robert McNamara<\/strong> one of the most compelling feature films of the past few years. More than just a talking head interview, director Errol Morris utilizes archive photographs and film footage to both punctuate and counterpoint McNamara\u2019s monologue.<\/p>\n

McNamara takes us through his entire military career, starting with his position as a statistical analyst during World War II where he participated in the planning of the firebombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities to his Presidential cabinet position. Some of his reflections are quite frank and may surprise his critics. \u201cIf we had lost the war we would have been persecuted as war criminals,\u201d he states when talking about the Tokyo fire bombings. Hearing McNamara question the morality of actions taken during what is universally accepted as a just war is as thought provoking as it is unsettling.<\/p>\n

<\/a>At this stage in his life McNamara seems to be able to take a hard look back and make some honest assessments about things he has seen and done. The enormity of some of the things he helped see the country still seems to frighten him today. \u201cIn my seven years as Secretary of Defense, we came within a hair\u2019s breadth of war with the Soviet Union three times, \u201c he states. \u201cI lived the Cold War 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Hell, it was a hot war.\u201d At another point in the film McNamara says, \u201cAny military commander honest with himself will admit that he\u2019s made mistakes and killed people. But there\u2019s no learning curve with nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of McNamara\u2019s lessons states, \u201cIn order to do good, you may have to engage evil,\u201d which leads to the question, \u201cHow much evil do we have to do to do good?\u201d While McNamara clearly admits that mistakes were made in assessing the situation in Vietnam, he draws the line at discussing whether or not he personally feels any guilt over the war.<\/p>\n

In the end though, one must ask themselves whether the film is McNamara\u2019s attempt to assuage any guilt he has over Vietnam and that he is using the documentary as a means to rehabilitate his image. Perhaps impishly, McNamara himself calls into question everything he has said in the film when he admonishes \u201cNever answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the turbulent 1960s, no figure was perhaps more controversial than former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. A polarizing figure, hailed as a genius by some while regarded by others as a con man or [click for more]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[3817,10756],"series":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-47422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-review","7":"tag-errol-morris","8":"tag-the-fog-of-war"},"aioseo_notices":[],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[2],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":false,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47422"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=47422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}