Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)
Director: Errol Morris
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Former US Secretary of State Robert McNamara looks back on a life that stretches from 'the war to end all wars', through active service in WWII, when his strategic recommendations may have led to the firebombing of Tokyo, and the massacre of 100,000 people overnight, though the Cuban Missile Crisis (when he was in the Oval Office with JFK), to Vietnam (with LBJ). Presented as a series of 11 life lessons - McNamara's own philosophical conclusions - the film in a sense allows him off the hook, except that he's too intelligent to cop out. As you would expect from Morris, perhaps America's most gifted film essayist, it's brilliantly realised and should be mandatory viewing for politicians on both sides of the Atlantic - not that it would do any good. 'Rationality will not save us,' McNamara declares. 'You cannot change human nature.'Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Errol Morris
Producer: Michael Williams, Julie Bilson Ahlberg, Errol Morris
Cast: Robert McNamara, Errol Morris full cast
Duration: 106 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now