Wednesday, February 27, 2013
CERTAINTY?
Today's movie was another documentary from Errol Morris
interviewing Robert McNamara about the Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam period.
This won the Oscar for best documentary in its year as well as several other prestigious awards.
Remarkable face close shots with McNamara using Morris invention for eye contact, the "Interrotron," "a video device that allows Morris and his subjects to look into each other's eyes while also looking directly into the camera lens".
The film is intercut with ingenious snatches of visual and aural history including stunning audio tape material between McNamara and Kennedy and then Johnson.
Philip Glass' music sets a mournful tone and is less intrusive than in an earlier film where he supplied the score.
I remember these times with some clarity. I marched. I wasn't a true peacenik because I was in the military myself and knew the uncertainty that obtains in any combat situation whether small scale in a platoon or in the big picture as seen in this film.
Ambivalence.
The backbone of the film is McNamara's 11 Lessons. A good backbone.
How does McNamara come off? He is 85 here. The events happened 30 - 40 years earlier.
He is clear and energetic. He is certain until he isn't. He is open. Tears and remorse are often not far from the surface.
The part about Kennedy's assassination are very moving. Upsetting. This is also very near the surface for me.
One thing is proven, more or less, and that is that LBJ was a prick.
On the other hand he had an impossible situation.
As a documentary, this film is rich. It is filled with evocative film shots as well as documents and handwritten notes close up.
It is more than fair to McNamara and his critics at the same time. There is a right and wrong and it gets evenly spread. The man was the SecDef for nine years. A lot of exposure to critics.
It is not an interview. Morris is there. Prompting. Sometimes exclaiming. Occasionally asking for some more. It is said that McNamara was going to give Morris an hour. He ended up doing 20.
I will make this a 4 out of Netflix 5 for, while I am willing to see this again, really feel that once is enough and the reliving of it all is better behind me than in front of me.
Labels: films, war and peace
