The Fog of War
Starring: Robert S. McNamara
Director: Errol Morris
The film: Esteemed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line) turns his focus on former US Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara, a man who was in charge of, and wore much of the blame for, the monumental disaster that was the Vietnam war, before moving on to head the World Bank. Talk about popular postings.
For the past 30 or so years, he has been like a hate figure or rallying point for protesters: all slicked-back hair and self-confidence, the very embodiment of government intervention and calculated, corporate cronyism. A man never seen to take a backward step, no matter what the dilemma or disaster he faced or created.
What we get from Morris is a seasoned politician facing the camera - sometimes staring almost through you - and letting rip. He skirts around any apologies for what he has directly or indirectly caused in his career - and some of these things are pretty major, to say the least. He was involved in the fire-bombing of Japan during the second world war (100,000 civilians perished in one night), the near-nuclear disaster that was the Cuban Missile Crisis, and then on to the Vietnam war, with its napalm, Agent Orange and other dirty deeds.