They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations.

Watching The Fog of War is like watching a taped historical lecture. It's less of a documentary, and more of a survey course in the nature of modern international relations from Robert McNamara. He's really the only speaker, and most of the time the camera is pointed right at him, giving the viewer the impression he's talking to you. Occasionally the guy interviewing him will shout a question from the background, but that also feels like someone else in a classroom with you asking a question.

When the camera isn't on McNamara it's showing old video, stills, newspaper headlines, maps, etc. Basically like if he were narrating a presentation.

The flow is a little choppy, and the thing doesn't have a clear thesis statement of the feel of a carefully prepared and polished presentation. I believe this is intentional. It's clear the film was made by filming a lot of McNamara talking and cutting it up in a way that mostly made sense. I think McNamara had some themes he was trying to get across, but they require a little user effort to distill and make sense of all the random things they talk about.

This is ok though, because for me the biggest theme is we're really in unknown territory. Trying to do international relations in the modern world with the communication infrastructure we have and the power to easily destroy nations with nuclear weapons. This sort of negates the possibility of other major themes, the situation is so much more complex then that.

I think this is especially interesting for youngsters like me who didn't live though the cold war or the Vietnam war. Has anyone out there seen this who was around for the major events this movie covers? (Cuban missile Crisis, Bombing in WW2, and the Vietnam War.) I'd be really interested to hear your perspective on it. I found it to be fascinating to hear from someone who was a major player in a lot of these world changing events.

One of the scariest things about all this is it reminds us the humanity of it all. I know we all like to think that the people in charge of this immense power are somehow infallible. They aren't prone to prejudices and blinded by ego or their own opinions. But it's clear that it's almost exactly the opposite. The people with the ambition, talent and intelligence to rise to these levels of power are used to being right - and unless there are a lot of very strong dissenting opinions will continue to think they're right about what's going on and how to solve international problems.

This was an especially topical film given the current state of American foreign policy. The parallels between the way Vietnam is portrayed here and what's going on in Iraq today are inescapable.

Still want more?
Read the Archives!