Review #50: 'The Fog of War' (2003)

Aside from the more obvious propaganda tools such as Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph Of The Will (1935), the power of the documentary medium has never been so blatantly evident than in Errol Morris’ 1988 film The Thin Blue Line. The film was based on the murder of a police office in Dallas, Texas which saw Randall Dale Adams wrongly imprisoned for 12 years, coming within 72 hours of being put to death. Morris’ investigation and eventual documentary film got the case re-opened, and saw Adams subsequently released. It is a glowing advert for the genre, and Morris was putting his massive talent at work again 15 years later in this film, The Fog Of War.

Morris sat down with former U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara for 20 hours, having him speak into the camera about his rather eventful career. The film structure is based on McNamara’s 11 lessons on the act of war, previously chronicled in McNamara and Brian Van De Mark’s book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. McNamara talks about his life from when he served in World War II, to his brief time serving as Ford Motor Company’s President, to his headhunted appointment as Secretary of Defence, initially under President John F. Kennedy, and eventually Lyndon B. Johnson. It is both a powerful autobiographical account of his life, and a complex analysis of the U.S.’s political structure and policies.

Being one of the most despised political figures in the last century, Morris’ portrait of Robert McNamara is both fair and even-handed. He simply allows McNamara to pour his words out, speaking through what is known as an ‘Interrotron’, where the talking head would talk directly into camera. It’s an effective trick, as it allows us as the audience to relate to him in a much more personal way. The film doesn’t try to be judgemental and put McNamara on a stand, it is however a commentary on war by one of the most fiercely intelligent and complex men of his time. McNamara, love him, sympathise with him, or outright hate him, he makes for an enticing host, and fascinating to listen to.

In somebody else’s less-experienced and less-skilled hands, this film may have just been a simple talking head picture. But in the hands of Morris, the film becomes utterly enthralling, cutting from McNamara’s talking head, to archive footage, special effects, graphs, charts, and whatever he can throw at the audience to make this as fast-paced and breathless as a documentary can possibly be, without ever losing focus of McNamara’s story. The Cuban Missile Crisis has never be so vividly discussed and so terrifyingly portrayed. Simply breathless filmmaking, and one of the finest documentaries I've seen from the ‘noughties’ era.

Directed by: Errol Morris

Starring: Robert McNamara

Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie