Review - The Fog of War

(trailer)
Synopsis: Robert McNamara was the Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and as such played an integral role in the management of the Vietnam War. 40 years later, Errol Morris got a chance to interview Mr. McNamara, then 85 years old. What grew out of this interview was not a mere documentary or autobiography but one man's experience in fighting and waging war first-hand, both as soldier and as strategist, passed along to future generations. He details the many mistakes he and others made during the Vietnam War and how to best avoid them in the future. He also focuses on the several things he and his colleagues got right, foremost among them the Cuban Missile Crisis, an event which McNamara stresses brought us not just in the minds of Hollywood's most imaginative writers but indeed truly within a hair's breadth of a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Morris takes the interview with McNamara and deconstructs it into 11 "rules" of war, each of the eleven summing up the core message of one of McNamara's anecdotes. These include messages like "empathize with your enemy", "maximize efficiency," and "rational thinking will not save us."

Review: it was a very enjoyable documentary but Ben, Andrew, and I formed very different opinions about Mr. McNamara as a person and as a man with insight on the workings of war. I felt that he expressed a great deal of guilt both through his words ("we acted like war criminals" in describing the firebombing of Japan in which he played a large part as strategic adviser, or coldly, gravelly stating "I don't want to talk to about that" when asked "Do you feel any guilt, any remorse about Vietnam?") as well as through his body language. Andrew felt that he expressed not so much "guilt" as "despair that despite giving it his best things still didn't pan out". Ben felt that McNamara showed zero guilt and had unabashedly shown up on camera to restate his innocence in the whole affair. Ben argued that McNamara dodged every question Morris provided (and McNamara himself later revealed his lifelong tactic of answering not the questions asked of him but rather those he wishes had been asked of him), but I felt that Mr. McNamara, if a repulsive man in certain respects, was still forthright and honest when answering questions. So for guilt, it was Ryan +, Andrew 0, and Ben -.

Regarding McNamara's insight into war, Ben and I both agreed that he had a lot of insight to offer. Andrew found that claim confusing and argued contrarily that while an interesting man telling interesting anecdotes he didn't offer anything particularly "insightful". We were never able to come to terms with what one another meant by "insightful" or what would be required of a man to provide what we could all agree would be an "insightful" view of war. So regarding this matter of Robert McNamara's insightful advice, Ryan +, Andrew -, Ben +.

Despite our varied opinions on both the man and the film's message, we all agreed that it had been enjoyable. So whether you love Robert McNamara or hate his guts, whether you know all about him or nothing about him, whether you're a pacifist or a "war is a necessary evil to preserve our freedoms" thinker, I suggest checking out this film.

The Fog of War: 4 stars out of 5.