14 June 2007
The Fog of War (4/5)
Watched The Fog of War [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ] the other night. It's about one of the highest-ranking officials of the Department of Defense who later became president of the World Bank and who served during one of the worst wars in American history but (wait for it) recognized many of the colossal mistakes that he had made during that war. To be fair, McNamara reveals himself in a much more ambivalent light than to say that he was mea culpa-ing, but a little self-examination goes a long etc. His confessions/remembrances are mixed with pride of accomplishment, grave regret, and pragmatic deflection. This movie is an historical document.
The reviewers' obsession with the camera viewpoint (McNamara looks directly at you) didn't hit me while watching. Perhaps a subtlety of affect that I couldn't discern. The Glass soundtrack was--and this is odd--too distracting as Glass. His music has possibly become iconic and no longer capable of resting in the background even though I thought his piano pieces for The Hours were outstanding and appropriate. The coda of the film was artful and daring and precise in capturing the ambiguities told throughout.
W/r/t Iraq: we are so fucked.
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