Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz-kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the Vietnam War as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Errol Morris's documentary is a landmark of the form — McNamara's eleven lessons structure gives the film a philosophical architecture rare in nonfiction cinema. The Fog of War is genuinely distinctive: Morris's use of the Interrotron, Philip Glass's hypnotic score, and the layering of archival footage with split-screen montage create an unmistakable aesthetic. McNamara himself is a riveting subject, and his candid self-examination of culpability across WWII, Korea, and Vietnam is extraordinarily compelling as 'plot.' Acting is replaced here by McNamara's performance of self — articulate, evasive, and occasionally devastating — earning an above-average mark. Cinematography benefits from Morris's signature visual style but remains a documentary context. The ending, while poignant in its ambiguity, doesn't quite resolve the moral reckoning the film promises, leaving it slightly below the film's otherwise exceptional standard.