Tears from a war criminal

The Fog of War.

I have to say, although I have seen many movies about the Vietnam War, I still think I'm not that knowledgeable about that period of history; and I didn't know much about Robert McNamara before this documentary. So I guess I'd rather talk about the form of this film instead of its content or the political/social significance.

First of all, I believe this film is a great example of documentary art and it has innovative approach of doing interviews. As a sense of documentary, this film is very informative, including lots of numbers, charts, historical footage, and government records; and most importantly, a personal aspect from one vital figure, McNamara. One interesting thing happened in this 2 hours film was that the 24 hours talk with McNamara was the only interview in this documentary. Instead of doing interviews with many people from different levels and standpoints, the director decided to talk and record McNamara exclusively. Someone might doubt the truthfulness or fairness of such documentary based on only one source. However, I think it has its own reason and the final product is powerful. Since McNamara is a key feature in all the big events like Cube Crisis, Cold War and Vietnam War, I think his own experiences and understandings are worth studying. A documentary that can record something in a neutral way and then leave the audience talking and thinking about it can be called a success. As what the director said in one interview, "I believe the movie was fair to him (McNamara). Maybe it didn't describe him, in every way, the way he wanted to be described. But the movie was not unfair, and he realizes that."

As the stylistic way of doing interview, the film director Errol Morris, used a special device called "Interrotron". It allows the interviewee to look directly into the camera and talk. It is very powerful since audience can see directly to McNamara's eyes. And his laughs, his pointing finger, his hesitation, his body gestures, and of course his crying exposed directly to the public. I believe this interview format brings more life into the abstract idea of the interview. And the documentary appears a fair portrayal of the figure to me. I know Robert McNamara was always portrayed as a pushover, a war criminal, and even a dictator of war. And I don’t think the film is trying to figure out whether he is a bay guy or a good one. The film just recorded his talking in a very honest natural way, in a very close distance, that provides lots of information for audience to judge. From the film, I just see McNamara as an 85 years old man, very strong, very confident, and very emotional, as a normal human being whom experienced a lot in his past. I believe the movie does create a very complex portrait of a man, a very interesting one. And in that respect, I think it's a successful movie.

Besides, this film used lots of archival footage, United States Cabinet conversation recordings, which are rarely seen in mainstream media. From this point, this documentary is very informative and based on thoughtful researches. The most valuable thing in this documentary is that the narratives or speaking were all come from McNamara. When he is telling us a very powerful and important story, there’s picture or a piece of footage on the screen showing the visual part of the story. I think the film did a great job in making the interviewee’s thoughts communicated visually. There’re effective use of showing numbers, charts, proportions, graphics, maps that make the saying more powerful. Especially the scenes that enlarged some numbers or certain words like “destroyed”, “murder”, “killed”, etc. The voice-over and the visuals combined in a way that a story is told, and made the story so powerful and readable.

Based on the above point, I also find something really interesting in this film.  Along with the voice-over from McNamara, between the conversation about wars and human mistakes, many pictures in the frame begin to have their own suggestions to the audience. For example, when McNamara’s talking about the cold war and America’s approach, the screen was showing a series of footage about rocket building, testing, lab activities. In such dialog environment, audience can easily connect those images with evil human power, the beginning of war, the end of moral laws. However, if the conversation were about the development of technology and economy, the imagery suggestions would be totally different. That just reminds me of the argument of photography from Susan Sontag in her book, Regarding the Pains of Others. Images can be easily manipulated for different political propagandas, and that can totally change the social impact of those pictures, and then change our views about interpreting the action of photography.