The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

Rating:
Summary: It is obvious why this won the oscar for best doco
Review: If you are thinking about staying home this weekend and want to watch a film that gets you thinking, then Errol Morris' Fog of War is your best bet. Winner of the 2003 Academy Award for best Documentary Feature, Fog of War documents Robert McNamara, U.S. Secretary of State under Kennedy and Johnson, and his recollection of everything from his tenure as President of Ford Motors, to his involvement, as an advisor, in the foreign policy and subsequent standoff of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Fog of War uses archival and interview footage with McNamara to explain the eleven lessons he learned from his time working as Secretary of State. His political savvy is captured onscreen as he brings the viewers up to speed on some of the historical decisions he helped foster, the results to which saw him become the President of the World Bank.

With the final Presidential Debate taking place this Friday, Fog of War acts as a reminder of the importance of past political decisions in a more comprehensive and constructive way thank Michael Moore is capable of.

Rating:
Summary: ** ALL WAR MONGERS SHOULD SEE THIS **
Review: This documentary was out of this world. You get a first hand account of how certain wars in our country's history were decided upon and in some instances bungled with many lives lost... all because of greed, excessive amount of control and lack of simple communication. Robert McNamara ought to be ashamed of himself for what he helped to achieve during his time in the white house ... and judging by how much he cried in the film he is ashamed.

Rating:
Summary: It's His Eyes
Review: You end up watching this man, a "talking head," for so long. While there are a handful of shots of him driving what looks like a Ford Taurus past the Pentagon and a number of other government landmarks, almost all footage showing a contemporary Robert McNamara seems to be a single-camera setup.

He is trying to be honest, but does not promise to be self-revelatory. Others here speculate that it is his shot at redemption. If you know his work at Ford, you know that he's not really a redemption kind of guy. Rather, he's more a scientist or engineer. He want's to contribute to a growing body of knowledge. He's [obviously] not afraid to make mistakes, so long as they are cataloged and recorded.

So long as we all learn from them.

That's why he made this film. There are moments of emotion - for example, when he talks about John Kennedy's death. But it's not a confessional. He says more than once, "I'm not going to go into this," because it relates to private matters.

Watch his eyes. Watch how hard it is for him to do what he feels so strongly compelled to do: somehow add meaning to his experiences by teaching us. The pain his eyes express sometimes is at once awful and compelling.

I don't think he made this movie to earn absolution. He's the kind of guy who would claim absolution as a matter of right.

No, he wants us to learn, and to enable that by as much lucidity and honesty as he can muster. Most leaders don't care enough about us to take this effort.

As much as a reasonable person could hate McNamara, I thank him for trying to teach us. It's like hearing someone already in hell trying to offer a word of warning.

Rating:
Summary: I'd rather be damned if I don't.
Review: Growing up as a kid on Ft Sam Houston, TX, during the sixties and seventies, I was so enthralled with soldiers and war and guns. I remember the nightly news with Walter Cronkite, always with casualty figures and reports from the front.
What I didn't realize at the time, what I was shielded from, were the number of casualties stuffed in the Brook Army hospital that we drove by every day. All I saw was a beautiful, big brick building; it was innocuous. The Fog of War brought back those insanely wonderful memories.
Watching the Fog of War is like inviting RSMcN to your living room to hear his side of the story. Like him, or revile him, this documentary is candidly enigmatic. At times, you take what he has to say at face value. At others, he reminds you, using one of his lessons, that what is said and what is heard may not necessarily be true. He makes no apologies. He simply states, "Any military commander will tell you that they have made mistakes. It's the Fog of War."
Do not miss the Special Features section; his memory of his comments to a protester at the World Bank is priceless.
What you should know...
[as a veteran of both the first and second American Gulf Wars, as well as the Balkan wars of the 90s, i have to admit i'm biased; war sucks, and i'm a sucker for people who admit that war sucks. knowing this, you should also know that i admire rummy, as he is RSMcN if RSMcN were SECDEF today. If you revile rummy, watch this documentary if only to study your enemy.]

Rating:
Summary: Great , edgy documentary of the lie of politics and war
Review: Wow this was a great documentary after watching movies by
Michael Moore I thought he was the only that could present
topics like these but was I wrong. Errol Morris won an Oscar for his work in this movie and it shows.

Its just stunning imaginative, and hard hitting. There are no
lies in the film, no ramblings of a Republican spewing out
propaganda just cold hard fact. Morris interviews Robert McNamara, the former Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and in great interview fashion McNamara
essentially bares his soul to the viewer.

Its not just a documentary buts its a reprieve of sorts for the
guy who has lead and participated in some of the most notorious
coverups and shames in American history from Vietnam to
the Cuban Missile Crisis to World War II.

Morris uses audio tapes captured from then President Lyndon
Johnson and McNamara to show us the sham that was Vietnam.

It wasnt about fighting the cold war people, it was about imposing our colonial ideals on a weaker nation. Just like
we did with the Soviet Union and left that nation in poverty,
there was never any proof they were going to attack us with
Castro, these are just the paranoid beliefs of one President
to the other.

McNamara tells us what we already know, there was no planning
for Vietnam It was a huge mistake that was financed merely
for profit. We were not liberating the Vietnamese, in fact
the Vietnamese did not want our presence.

He mentions the poor military technology that often made
mistakes such as when enemies attacked when they didnt.

He mentions that all his doings have been wrong and it took
many years as it usually does for a narrow minded individual
to wake up to the truth.

The 1995 meeting he had with a former Prime Minister sums
it up "We were not fighting Communism, he says we were
fighting for our Independence".

This is just an awesome film like "FAHRENHEIT 911" that has
to been and seen with a large gathering of people so we can
learn from our mistakes so we dont repeat them.