Review: "KONG: SKULL ISLAND" is a Monster Movie Paradise

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 14 of 2024 (No. 1958) by Leroy Douresseaux

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Running time: 118 minutes (1 hour, 58 minutes)

MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for brief strong language

DIRECTOR:  Jordan Vogt-Roberts

WRITERS:  Max Borenstein, Dan Gilroy, and Derek Connolly; from a story by John Gatins

PRODUCERS:  Jon Jashni, Mary Parent, Thomas Tull, and Alex Garcia

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Larry Fong (D.o.P.)

EDITOR:  Richard Pearson

COMPOSER:  Henry Jackman

Academy Award nominee

ADVENTURE/HISTORICAL/HORROR and MILITARY/SCI-FI

Starring:  Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, John Goodman, Corey Hawkins, John Ortiz, Tian Jing, Toby Kebbell, Jason Mitchell, Shea Whigham, Thomas Mann, Eugene Cordero, Marc Evan Jackson, Terry Notary, and Richard Jenkins

Kong: Skull Island is a 2017 monster movie, sci-fi military, and period, adventure film directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts.  It is a reboot of the King Kong film franchise and is also the second film in the “MonsterVerse” film series following 2014's Godzilla.  Set at the end of the Vietnam war, Kong: Skull Island focuses on a group of military personnel and civilian scientists who must fight to escape an uncharted island full of giant monsters that includes the island's king, the mighty Kong.

Kong: Skull Island introduces Bill Randa (John Goodman), the head of the U.S. government organization, “Monarch.”  It is 1973, and the U.S. is ending its mission in Vietnam.  Randa fears his time is running out to launch a mission to a recently discovered island that has long been shrouded in mystery and legend, “Skull Island.”

He convinces a U.S. senator to fund an expedition to the island, and subsequently recruits a U.S. Army unit commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) to accompany him.  Also on the mission are recent Monarch recruits, geologist Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins) and biologist San Lin (Tian Jing).  Randa also hires James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), a former British Special Air Service Captain, as a hunter-tracker for this expedition.  Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), an “anti-war” photographer, forces her way onto the expedition.

The expedition begins with thirteen U.S. army helicopters penetrating the fearsome storms that surround Skull Island.  Randa and Brooks told Packard that they wanted to map the island by dropping seismic explosives, and shortly after arriving on the island, Packard's men begin dropping the explosives, which does help to map the island.  The explosions also draw the attention of a giant ape, which promptly attacks the helicopters.  Soon, the expedition is divided into two groups of survivors.  One is led by Packard who wants revenge against the giant ape, and the other by Conrad who wants to reach a rendezvous point where they will be rescued.  The giant ape, however, is “Kong,” king of Skull Island, and he isn't the only deadly, giant monster on the island.

The “MonsterVerse” is an American multimedia franchise that includes movies; a streaming live-action television series (Apple TV+) and a streaming animated series (Netflix); books and comic books; and video games.  It is a shared fictional universe that includes the character, “Godzilla” and other characters owned and created by the Japanese entertainment company, Toho Co., Ltd.  The MonsterVerse is a reboot of Toho's Godzilla franchise.  It is also a reboot of the King Kong film franchise, which is based on the character, “King Kong,” that was created by actor and filmmaker, Merian C. Cooper (1893-1973).

The fifth film in the MonsterVerse series, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, is due to be released sometime in March, so I have decided to watch and review the previous four films:  2014's Godzilla, 2017's Kong: Skull Island (which is the subject of this review), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021).  I have previously seen Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island, but only recently made attempts to review them.

Kong: Skull Island is proudly both a monster movie and a King Kong movie.  Like Peter Jackson's 2005 film, King Kong (Universal Pictures), Kong: Skull Island digs into its “lost world” pulp fiction and pre-Code horror movie roots.  Kong is as King Kong as any other cinematic version of the character, and the result is an exhilarating film that is fun to watch even after repeated viewings.  Most books about writing fiction and screenplays will emphasize that the characters should drive the narrative, but Kong: Skull Island's narrative is driven by its plot, by its other-worldly setting, and especially by its monstrous gods and god-like monsters.

There are quite a few interesting characters in the film.  Samuel L. Jackson makes the most of his Lt. Col. Packard, who is driven crazy by his insane mission to kill Kong as a salve for his bitterness about the end of the American misadventure in Vietnam.  John C. Reilly once again displays his tremendous character actor chops as the lost-in-time, U.S. Army Air Force Lt. Hank Marlow.  Tom Hiddleston is a good heroic lead as James Conrad in a film in which the human hero is not the film's most important character.  Brie Larson also shows off her acting skills by chopping out some space for his character, Mason Weaver.

However, the characters are just pawns in the film's plot, which involves surviving Skull Island's various monsters and advancing to the rendezvous point.  The setting of Kong: Skull Island is a lost world Eden that is part tropical paradise and part jungle horror, an environment in which the most beautiful place is the most dangerous.  The amazing things to see on this island are its deadly denizens, which includes gargantuan spiders, man-snatching carnivorous birds, and seemingly unstoppable lizards that are literally nothing more than perfectly designed death machines.  I would be remiss if I didn't mention the practically mute human natives of Skull Island with their dazzling array of face and body painting and eclectic costumes.

At the center of Kong: Skull Island is the film's most important character and element, Kong, himself.  He is a thing of beauty, the best special effect in a movie favored with enough impressive CGI to have earned itself an Oscar nomination for “Best Achievement in Visual Effects.”  Kong's introduction into the story, a breathtaking display of fight choreography pitting him against a squadron of military helicopters, is as good as the best fight scenes audiences will find in the top superhero movies.  Whatever glitches in the overall narrative and character development Kong: Skull Island has, Kong's introduction glosses over.  Kong is made king again in Kong: Skull Island, and that is why it is a damn shame that there is not a Kong: Skull Island 2.

[This film has an extra scene at the end of the credits.]

A-

7 of 10

★★★½ out of 4 stars

Sunday, March 17, 2024

NOTES:

2018 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Visual Effects” (Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza, and Michael Meinardus)

The text is copyright © 2024 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "HEARTS AND MINDS" Still Condemns with Power

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 61 of 2021 (No. 1799) by Leroy Douresseaux

Hearts and Minds (1974)
Running time:  112 minutes (1 hour, 52 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  Peter Davis
PRODUCERS:  Peter Davis and Bert Schneider
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Richard Pearce
EDITORS:  Lynzee Klingman and Susan Martin
Academy Award winner

DOCUMENTARY – War, Politics

[The recent ignominious end of the “War in Afghanistan” (October 7, 2001 to August 30, 2021) got me to thinking about America's involvement in Vietnam decades ago because … you know … people never learn and they never change.  In military conflicts, if you run on up in there, you gonna eventually run on up outta there.  So anyway, I remembered the gold standard in theatrical Vietnam documentary films, Hearts and Minds, and it was time to see it again.]

Starring:  Captain Randy Floyd, Sgt. William Marshall, Lt. George Coker, George Bidault, Father Chan Tin, Daniel Ellsberg, David Emerson, Mary Cochran Emerson, Senator J.W. Fulbright, Sec. Clark Gifford, Corporal Stan Holder, Mui Duc Giang, Walt Rostow, Vu Duc Vinh, Vu Thi Hue, Vu Thri To, Gen. William Westmoreland, and Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson

Hearts and Minds is a 1974 documentary film directed by Peter Davis.  It is an antiwar movie that examines the Vietnam War (1955 to 1975) and confronts the United States' involvement in the civil war within the Southeast Asian nation of Vietnam.  The film's title, Hearts and Minds, is based on the following quote from U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson:  “the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there.”  Hearts and Minds won the Oscar for “Best Documentary, Features” at the 47th Academy Awards, which were presented in 1975.

During the time of its release, critics of Hearts and Minds complained that the film was two one-sided, but from the beginning, the film's stated and obvious premise was that the United States should not have been involved Vietnam and in the strife between the governments of North Vietnam and South Vietnam.  Director Peter Davis recounts the history of the Vietnam War by examining the history and attitudes of the opposing sides of the war, and he does this by interviewing government officials and military leadership and personnel from both sides of conflict.  He also uses archival news footage, specifically featuring the U.S. Presidents whose actions started, sustained, and/or exacerbated the conflict and violence that marked the Vietnam War.

It is in that way that Davis presents what I see as the film's key theme:  American attitudes and goals were the reason that a Vietnamese civil war became an American-driven Vietnam War.  After World War II, the leadership of the U.S., both government and military, decided to make the world in its image.  American's imperial ambitions had been long-simmering, seeing a number of nations as rivals or obstacles, especially the Soviet Union and China, the faces of “international communism.”  Such imperialism found a proxy war in the struggle between communist North Vietnamese and its South Vietnamese allies, the Viet Cong,against South Vietnam (or the State of Vietnam).

Hearts and Minds emphasizes how the the United States helped to create the bloody conflict with Vietnam and how it ultimately prolonged the struggle.  In interviews with such people as General William Westmoreland, the American commander of military operations in the Vietnam War during its peak period from 1964 to 1968, not only does the self-righteous militarism of the U.S. reveal itself, but also American' racist attitudes about the Vietnamese people.

This militarism and racism is also exemplified in another one of the film's interview subjects, American prison of war (POW), U.S. Navy pilot, Lt. George Coker.  The film includes footage of Coker making public speeches after his release from six-and-a-half years in North Vietnamese captivity.  Coker's racism and jingoism are repulsive, which, to me, are obviously the result of his upbringing (brainwashing) and military training.  However, I'm not sure that it was a good choice to include him in Hearts and Minds, as the film's detractors have used Coker's status as a POW to criticize the film as being “too one-sided” and anti-war propaganda.  One could always say that the attitudes Coker reveals in his return to the U.S. are, to some extent, the result of the degradation he experienced as a POW.

That aside, what makes Hearts and Minds one of the greatest American documentary films of all time (if not the greatest) is director Peter Davis' willingness to give voice to the Vietnamese people through interviews and film footage.  One of Hearts and Minds' most shocking and controversial sequences shows the funeral of a South Vietnamese soldier.  His grieving family includes a sobbing woman (his mother?) who has to be restrained from climbing into the grave after his coffin is lowered into the ground.  The cries of a grieving boy, perhaps his son, are like that of a wounded animal.  I first saw Hearts and Minds a few years ago on TV, and that scene stays with me, even as I write this.

Americans sometimes remember how many Americans died in the Vietnam War (over 58,000), but almost three-and-a-half million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers died during the war (according to numbers provided by Vietnam in 1995).  An example of the wanton death and destruction is personified in a North Vietnamese farmer who loses his eight-year-old daughter and his three-year-old son because of an American bombing campaign.  His anger and grief, especially at the death of his daughter who was killed while feeding pigs (all of which apparently lived), encapsulates the wrongness of American involvement in Vietnam.

Two other interviews of American servicemen stand out to me.  First, Sgt. William Marshall, an African-American from Detroit, offers a bit of levity in the film by the way in which he describes his experiences.  However, he also condemns Americans, demanding that they witness in his war injuries a guilt from which we may not turn away.

The other is Hearts and Minds' concluding interview, which features US Vietnam veteran, U.S. Navy pilot, Captain Randy Floyd.  One of his statements summons up the feckless relationship that Americans have with their militarist and imperialist government.  Floyd says, “We've all tried very hard to escape what we have learned in Vietnam.  I think Americans have worked extremely hard not to see the criminality that their officials and their policy makers exhibited.”

With those words, Hearts and Minds makes itself both timely and timeless, although the American “Global War on Terror” of the twenty-first century also helped to keep this film timely.  It is left up to academics, film historians, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS) “Academy Film Archive,” and the “National Film Registry” to save Hearts and Minds from being entirely forgotten.  Still, we movie fans, or at least some us, must make an effort to bring Hearts and Minds back into prominence.  America has need of this work of art and of this lesson in history.

10 of 10

Sunday, October 17, 2021


NOTES:
1975 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win for “Best Documentary, Features” (Peter Davis and Bert Schneider)

1975 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Documentary Film”

2018 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  “National Film Registry”


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "The Weather Underground" is Interesting, but a Little Dry

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 158 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Weather Underground (2002)
(film received its U.S. theatrical release in June 2003)
Running time: 92 minutes (1 hour, 32 minutes)
Not rated by the MPAA
DIRECTORS: Sam Green with Bill Siegel
PRODUCERS: Carrie Lazono, Marc Smolowitz, Sam Green, and Bill Siegel
EDITORS: Dawn Logsdon and Sam Green
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Andy Black and Federico Salsano
Academy Award nominee

DOCUMENTARY

Starring: Bill Ayers, Kathleen Cleaver, Bernadine Dohrn, Brian Flanagan, David Gilbert, Todd Gitlin, Naomi Jaffe, Mark Rudd, Don Strickland, and (narrator) Lili Taylor

Some people believe that not acting against violence is itself violence, and from this belief sprang the Weathermen. Their group, The Weather Underground, was a radical offshoot of the 1960’s anti-war student group, Students for a Democratic Society. The Weather Underground not only marched in protest, but they also rioted and bombed the offices of government organizations in an attempt to bring about a revolution in America. It was not about changing the American political landscape; it was about destroying it.

The Weather Underground is a 2002 documentary about the rise and fall of The Weathermen. The film earned an Oscar® nomination in the category “Best Documentary, Features” for directors Sam Green and Bill Siegel. The filmmakers interviewed former Weathermen and compiled those interviews with archival film footage of the Vietnam War, news broadcasts, and anti-war demonstrations. They also included readings of Weathermen letters, footage of 60’s and 70’s era interviews of the Weathermen, and photographic images of the original group and related subject matter.

The film is a sobering account of the group and its members, but the Weathermen, at least now, don’t make compelling characters, either in the present or in old film footage of the group. They’re certainly not as intriguing as, say, the subjects in fellow 2004 Oscar® feature documentary nominee, Capturing the Friedmans. The Weathermen (and Weatherwomen) actually don’t go into the kind of detail that would have really brought their story to life and given the film more life, likely because some of what they might say about their activities could still be used against them in a court of law. They are understandable secretive, but no matter how coy they may be, their hints aren’t really enough to pique interest in their former activities, and even less in what they’re now doing.

In fact, the most interesting things in this film are the accounts of the Vietnam conflict and The Weather Undergrounds quasi-spiritual and philosophical connection to The Black Panthers. When the film deals with the destruction of lives on both sides of the Vietnam conflict and the FBI’s murderous war against the Panthers, that’s when The Weather Underground is most passionate, a fatal flaw in the film, actually. Every time the filmmakers and editors move from the war and the Panthers to the privileged middle class whites who made up The Weather Underground, I found myself eagerly anticipating when the filmmakers would return to the war and the Panthers. Those parts of the film are great. Of course, the Weathermen’s story is very interesting, but it is ultimately told a little too dryly here for this documentary’s own good.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2004 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Documentary, Features” (Sam Green and Bill Siegel)

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"The Most Dangerous Man in America" Tackles Still-Riveting Topic

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 54 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009)
Running time: 92 minutes (1 hour, 32 minutes)
PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS: Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
WRITERS: Lawrence Lerew, Rick Goldsmith, Judith Ehrlich, and Michael Chandler
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Vicente Franco and Dan Krauss
EDITORS: Michael Chandler, Rick Goldsmith, and Lawrence Lerew
COMPOSER: Blake Leyh

DOCUMENTARY – History, Politics, War

Starring: Daniel Ellsberg (also narrator), Anthony Russo, Patricia Ellsberg, Mort Halperin, Egil “Bud” Krogh, Tom Oliphant, Janaki Tschannerl, and Howard Zinn

June marks the 40 anniversary of the New York Times’ first publication of excerpts from the Pentagon Papers (specifically June 13, 1971). Officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, the Pentagon Papers are a history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. This study was initiated by the United States Department of Defense by order of then Secretary of State Robert McNamara.

Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, (born April 7, 1931) was a United States military analyst beginning in 1964 for the Pentagon under Secretary McNamara and then for the State Department as a civilian in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Beginning in 1967, Dr. Ellsberg was at the RAND Corporation (a global policy think tank) where he worked on the top-secret study of classified documents that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. This study was 7,000 pages long and was divided into 47 volumes.

Once a supporter of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Ellsberg became disaffected with the Vietnam War. Beginning in late 1969, Ellsberg and a former colleague, Anthony Russo, secretly photocopied several copies of the Pentagon Papers. In 1971, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, which began publishing excerpts from the study. The Times’ publication precipitated a national political controversy because the Pentagon Papers exposed the top-secret military history of the United States involvement in Vietnam.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is a 2009 documentary film from directors Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith. Nominated in 2010 for a best documentary Oscar, The Most Dangerous Man in America explores the events around the publication of the Pentagon Papers by focusing on Daniel Ellsberg, who also acts as the film’s narrator. Some of the film’s narrative is also taken from Ellsberg’s 2002 book, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (Viking Press).

Daniel Ellsberg is certainly an important man in modern American political history, and The Most Dangerous Man in America gives us a glimpse into his personal history, including details into a childhood tragedy, his time in the U.S. Marine Corps, and his relationship, courtship, and eventual marriage to his second wife, Patricia Marx.

However, Ellsberg is a doorway into the secret history of the Vietnam War, and though much of that history has been revealed, thanks in large part to Ellsberg, the majority of Americans are likely still unfamiliar with how the U.S. really got involved in Vietnam. For a long time, the official story was that the U.S. stumbled into Vietnam, and that’s not true. Understanding American involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967 is crucial not only to understanding American foreign policy – how it works and why, but also to discovering how four U.S. Presidents lied to the American public about Vietnam.

Ellsberg and this film reveal that sometimes, even what is top secret should be made public. Perhaps, such revelations will protect the United States and its citizens both from dirty wars and also lying, even criminal Presidential administrations. None of the four Presidents mentioned here comes out looking good – especially Richard M. Nixon.

If one wants to be entertained, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers isn’t exactly entertaining. It is sometimes dry and academic, although there are moments of riveting drama and even bits that seem like a spy thriller. Still, it is our responsibility as citizens to know the truth and the things that are hidden, both in hour history and in the times in which we live. From time to time, this documentary is even broadcast by PBS. Watch it on television or rent it, but The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is an essential film for everyone from high school students to adults.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2010 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Documentary, Features” (Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith)

Monday, June 27, 2011

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Review: Documentary Film, "Why We Fight," Answers the Question

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 177 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Why We Fight (2005)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA/France/UK/Canada/Denmark
Running time: 98 minutes (1 hour, 38 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for disturbing war images and brief language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Eugene Jarecki
PRODUCERS: Susannah Shipman and Eugene Jarecki
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Sam Cullman, Joe Di Gennaro, Christopher Li, Etienne Sauret (director of photography), May Ying Welsh, Brett Wiley, and Foster Wiley
EDITOR: Nancy Kennedy

DOCUMENTARY – History

Starring: Joseph Cirincione, Gwynne Dyer, Dwight D. Eisenhower (archival), John S.D. Eisenhower, Susan Eisenhower, Chalmers Johnson, Donna Ellington, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, Wilton Sekser, Franklin Spinney, William Kristol, Sen. John McCain, Richard Perle, Dan Rather, Wally Saeger, and Gore Vidal

It begins with President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation on January 17, 1961, then, the documentary that was a hit at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, Why We Fight, begins its examination of the American military machine – the military industrial complex and asks the question "Why does American wage war?"

Along the way, this documentary becomes an unflinching look at the rise of the American Empire. Much of it filmed during the war in Iraq, Why We Fight also surveys and dissects a half-century of American military adventures. Using archival footage and interviews with peace activists, scholars, soldiers, government officials, journalists, and even a grieving father, Why We Fight scrutinizes and analyzes the political interests (Congress and the Presidency), economic interests (manufacturers of military vehicles, armament, equipment, etc.), and ideological factors (think tanks) that are behind American militarism – the relatively small group of people that really control a government that is supposedly of, by, and for the people.

Directed by Edward Jarecki (The Trials of Henry Kissinger), Why We Fight is both sober and compelling. It’s sober because it reveals that much of our military actions and campaigns going back to the atomic bombing of Japan were as much about the U.S. flexing its muscles and establishing itself as the dominate nation on earth as they were about self-defense. In some cases, it was more about imperialism than it was about defending the nation from enemies, as Jarecki’s film claims. Why We Fight is compelling because the interview subjects come from a broad spectrum of people who have worked in the upper echelons of the Department of Defense or are actively involved in covering the government as scholars or journalists. There’s even a former CIA operative.

When trying to answer the question of “Why do we fight?” much of the discussion uses the war in Iraq – from the build up to the beginning of the invasion of the country – as the frame of reference. At times, Why We Fight comes across as another one-sided documentary/screed against the war in Iraq. However, it has the grace to present the interviews, film footage (archival and recent), and history in a manner that allows the viewer to think for himself. There are a lot of people in this film, and they have a lot to say. There’s enough information from which the viewer can draw his own conclusions.

Sometimes, even good documentaries are compelling, but they’re like fast food. They are as forgettable as many regular non-documentary films. Why We Fight, however, seeks to educate and inform, and it wants to stay with you. Why We Fight has the audacity to feel that it is important and actually attempt to be an important movie. Jarecki offers us the opportunity to take him at his word, or simply watch, listen, and think. His own mind seems made up, but he presents things in a fashion that isn’t necessarily didactic. Just the facts, Jarecki tells us. This is how it is, but in the end, he doesn’t offer a pat conclusion. Why We Fight simply fades away with words of warning – a little something to take root in your mind.

8 of 10
A

Monday, August 14, 2006

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Review: "The Fog of War" the Best Film of 2003

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 86 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for images and thematic issues of war and destruction
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Errol Morris
PRODUCERS: Julie Ahlberg, Errol Morris, and Michael Williams
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Chappell (D.o.P.) Peter Donahue (D.o.P.)
EDITORS: Doug Abel, Chyld King, and Karen Schmeer
COMPOSER: Philip Glass
Academy Award winner

DOCUMENTARY/WAR

Starring: Robert S. McNamara

Oscar® finally noticed famed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, and the first time turned out to be the charm. Morris’ The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for “Best Documentary, Features.”

Morris built his 95-minute film out of over 20 hours of interviews he conducted with Robert McNamara (1916-), the Secretary of Defense for both the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson presidential administrations. Morris also supplemented the film with archival footage and other interviews, as well as with charts, graphs, animation, and other film footage. Although the film covers most of McNamara’s life, Morris’ focus is on McNamara’s involvement with the Vietnam War.

Although the film doesn’t seem to make any moral judgments on its own, Morris leaves that up to McNamara, who, in the end, doesn’t seem like he’s in the mood to make apologies for what happened in Vietnam. Watch the film and listen to the man and really understand that war, like fog, can be ethereal, so people can have a difficult time seeing the wholeness of a thing, unable to see all the possibilities and angles. McNamara is also difficult to see. For all that he tells, he really doesn’t answer many questions; he doesn’t answer the questions he’s expected to answer. Why did the war happen? Why didn’t the U.S. end it sooner?

Still, McNamara lived a large life and worked for and with a lot of very influential and powerful people. Obviously, he’s a bright fellow, and he shares a lot of knowledge and information with us. He may not answer some of the big questions that we have, but he brings us inside the machinery of war and lets us see a lot. The Fog of War is a revealing portrait, and those who listen will learn a lot about the man and a lot about 20th century American military history. It’s amazing how much McNamara and Morris can pack into such a short film. The Fog of War is a vivid film more potent than fiction and as rich as life itself.

10 of 10

NOTES:
2004 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Documentary, Features” (Errol Morris and Michael Williams)

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