The Fog of War

Director: Errol Morris (2003)

Can you be fascinated by someone who says straight into the camera, pointing a finger at you and without any blinking or hesitation: “that day we killed 100000 people in Tokyo – men, women and children.” And you know it's true and he is largely responsible for that. Well it's strange, but you can. At least I was fascinated. In a way.

By the way the middle name of Robert S. McNamara is Strange and he had a strange destiny of being U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam war. He lived a long and strange life and he will be remembered for the war and for introducing the System analysis into public policy. So it's all about the interactions between the systems and different players, all about the decision making and getting maximum outcome. And the humans of course are just another variable in this scheme. And honestly you can't do it any other way if you want to win the war. Though at the end of the days you must admit that there is a Fog of War which means too many variables and too many uncertainties and you simply can't predict everything. Still you have to try.

Still you remain a human being yourself. When I say I was fascinated I didn't mean that I somehow started to like McNamara. To put it in his own words when he was talking about understanding enemies: “we must develop a sense of empathy—I don't mean "sympathy," but rather "understanding". And I tried to understand him not as an enemy but as a complex and very clever human being and that was fascinating and as I think exactly this fascinated the director Errol Morris also.

Sometimes McNamara becomes meek and sentimental also. He cries like a child when talking about the death of Kennedy and there is tears in his eyes when he speaks about dead American soldiers. And he admits that they would be tried as war criminals for bombing Japanese cities if they wouldn't win the WW2. (He was doing some analysis that shaped the bombing strategies there). So what makes the action of losers immoral and justifies the same actions done by winner, he asks. And from his mouth it's not just some abstract philosophical idea. Somehow he manages to separate his personal life and job (war) and you understand that he needs to do so to stay sane. And after all he says that his years as a Secretary of Defense was the best in his life, he enjoyed the game of war. Still he sometimes asked those questions.
I couldn't really understand how honest McNamara was. I mean he seemed to be honest, but you can't forget that he is old fox. On the other hand he looked like an old person who really had the message, who wanted to be remembered for what he was and what he did. He seemed like a person who thinks about himself as something larger than life, so he doesn't need to be ashamed, not that he wants to. He admits his mistakes, but he says that he had to do everything he did.

I was asking myself what makes Errol Morris such a brilliant filmmaker and after a brief thinking I guess I found the answer that suits me. It's logic. His cold and calm and very logical mind that you can feel behind the moving pictures, behind the decisions in editing room and so on. It's not that he does not empathize with his subjects, he does a lot, but in the same way proposed by McNamara. And he has some sort of magic of being trusted by people whom he interviews, something which is essential for a documentary filmmaker, I guess.

The outcome is something truly fascinating. It's an insight in human history and human nature. Anthropological study in a way. And there is beautiful soundtrack by Philip Glass which adds a bit of pure poetry to philosophical, historical and psychological debate on the screen.