Here's a crazy premise for a movie:
- a "grammatically-challenged user-friendly" candidate
- a scion of a famous political father/family
- a slick campaign manager that is the true brains of the outfit
- "complex web of influence and corruption, involving high stakes lobbyists, media conglomerates, environmental plunderers"
Not so wild a premise now. And not so coincidental either. John Sayles, the famed American filmmaker of movies such as Matewan and Lone Star, released this movie in 2004 prior to the election. He was not trying to hide his allegiance. The story may have been fictional and the names changed to protect the not-so-innocent, but the subject of the satire was very obvious.
Led by a cast that includes several Sayles regulars like Chris Cooper and Kris Kristoferson, this movie does a great job of showing how the gullibility of the public can be taken advantage of by a well-organized machine.
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Fog of War
One would think that a movie that consists of an 90 minute long interview with an 86 year-old man who mainly talked about the Vietnam War would be (1) boring and (2) irrelevant to today's political climate. You would be wrong on both counts. Errol Morris' Oscar winning documentary does a great job of going back and forth between the interview and archive footage to create a suprisingly lively narrative. And the manner in which he is interview allows you to see the pauses and emotion of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as he recounts his experiences. Far from being an apologist for McNamara, Morris does, however, show how well-intentioned people can get themselves into terrible situations (and take a country with them). It is this that makes this movie so relevant now. The documentary focuses on 11 lessons:
- Empathize with your enemy.
- Rationality will not save us.
- There's something beyond one's self.
- Maximize efficiency.
- Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
- Get the data.
- Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
- Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
- In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
- Never say never.
- You can't change human nature.
11 lessons that were obviously not learned by our current administration. I highly recommend this film.
3 comments:
"in order to do good, you may have to engage in evil"
That's essentialy the whole bottomline of war and it's purpose.
I found Fog of War very moving. It's one of very few movies that have brought me to tears. The total destruction that McNamara and friends brought on Japanese civilians was horrifying. (I don't want to argue about whether it was necessary or not.) And to be the architect of Vietnam on top of it, wow. It's hard for me not to believe that the world would have been a much better place had he never been born.
If only we could get people who are still in office to be so reflective.
Yeah, it gives you pause when an obviously intelligent man with some sense of compassion could still get in such a situation. That's the lesson -- inaction and apathy when you see things that you don't agree with going on are the worst sins.
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