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268 of 301 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Giant, Startling Vision, March 15, 2004
This brilliant work by director Morris is the stuff of life. And death. It arouses the most basic moral and immoral questions of being human through an enormously complex and yet simple man, Robert Strange McNamara. It seems no coincidence, his middle name, as we get to know him in all his cleverness and contradictions. Morris subtly illuminates, literally through McNamara's eyes, what it means to have power over life and death. Like God. There is something almost spiritual in McNamara's eyes, edited against searing images of, well, graphs, statistics, memoranda, bursting firebombs and nuclear mushrooms, almost all rarely seen-before footage. The eyes are the soul of this film - McNamara's are a combination of supreme confidence and extreme doubt. But not only his eyes - for example, we see President Kennedy's eyes frozen in the lens as he tells the nation of imminent nuclear war in 1962, a look that would make a Marine shiver. This new interview technique ("interrotron" ) draws us into what? War? Peace? Honor? Life? Power? Evil? Born 85 years ago, McNamara is the quintessential man of his time, what Brokaw called the greatest generation, a sobriquet this documentary underscores. In McNamara's words he deplored the sorrow and pity of the four great wars of his lifetime; the trenches in France; the nuclear and indiscriminate firebombing of innocent Japanese; the debacle in Korea; the flaming jungles of Vietnam. His command of statistics is breathtaking. But it is the eyes that reveal an inner truth, the precise opposite of his concise, rational words - his 11 "lessons". We see a man who never found himself in harm's way. We see eyes so ironically blinded by a circa 1918 vision of duty and honor that, though he loathed the horrifics of Vietnam, he was compelled to allow his true judgment to go unexpressed until nearly 60,000 Americans were dead. He was at once perhaps the most powerful man in the world and its most despicable. It is easy to see why a brilliant young President Kennedy would choose someone as Defense Secretary who seemed so like himself, but tragically without the courage. And why, with Kennedy's death, McNamara by sheer ambition and brilliance would ascend to the very pinnacle of power. Yet, I couldn't hate this guy. Perhaps the most telling moment is McNamara's clear devastation at Kennedy's assassination 41 years ago, again told in his eyes and a rare, emotional choking voice. So it's difficult to blame him for all those deaths he might have prevented -- McNamara genuinely believed he was doing the right thing for his Presidents: through an obsessive sense of duty and loyalty. Now that his day of legacy approaches, he expresses criticism over the actions of others -- General LeMay and President Johnson are the favored targets. But McNamara cannot quite bring himself to admit his own mistakes of enormous proportions. Yet it's quite clear that he was one of only two men who could have ended the 7-year slaughter (of his term in office). Many may find that failure a reason to despise the man. I found it just human. This film offers up no easy answers (certainly not his 11 "lessons'), but more importantly raises many fundamental questions. Philip Glass' elegiac, edgy scoring perfectly meshes with this thriller. An impressive and important contribution to understanding our nation's ambivalent past.
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37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All eleven lessons are extremely important to us all., February 16, 2004
Errol Morris did his homework for this movie. 20 hours of film and tape. The music by Philip Glass is outstanding. The film, the interaction in the first person, the archival footage, some in three dimensions are mind boggling. The music is very unique and original. The messages are clear. In war the human mind cannot comprehend the complexities. "How much evil must we do, to do good?" Having assisted in the production of the film, I know how hard everyone worked to make this unforgetable film. It should be required viewing for all military and flag officer candidates as well as all presidential candidates. SEE IT. It is worth every minute. Even if you are too young to remember Vietnam. Even if you served in Vietnam and hate Mr. McNamara. You need to see this important film.
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60 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's His Eyes, January 13, 2005
You end up watching this man, a "talking head," for so long. While there are a handful of shots of him driving what looks like a Ford Taurus past the Pentagon and a number of other government landmarks, almost all footage showing a contemporary Robert McNamara seems to be a single-camera setup.
He is trying to be honest, but does not promise to be self-revelatory. Others here speculate that it is his shot at redemption. If you know his work at Ford, you know that he's not really a redemption kind of guy. Rather, he's more a scientist or engineer. He want's to contribute to a growing body of knowledge. He's [obviously] not afraid to make mistakes, so long as they are cataloged and recorded.
So long as we all learn from them.
That's why he made this film. There are moments of emotion - for example, when he talks about John Kennedy's death. But it's not a confessional. He says more than once, "I'm not going to go into this," because it relates to private matters.
Watch his eyes. Watch how hard it is for him to do what he feels so strongly compelled to do: somehow add meaning to his experiences by teaching us. The pain his eyes express sometimes is at once awful and compelling.
I don't think he made this movie to earn absolution. He's the kind of guy who would claim absolution as a matter of right.
No, he wants us to learn, and to enable that by as much lucidity and honesty as he can muster. Most leaders don't care enough about us to take this effort.
As much as a reasonable person could hate McNamara, I thank him for trying to teach us. It's like hearing someone already in hell trying to offer a word of warning.
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