Rating: 17/20
Plot: Some old guy talks about war.
Cory recommended this about 3 1/2 years ago, but I'm not sure why I didn't watch it long before anyway. It's Errol Morris, and Philip Glass scored the thing. Errol Morris has never made a bad documentary, and there has never been a bad documentary scored by Philip Glass. That's a winning combination. I did like the music here, and Morris's style--which always seems not-quite-professional to me--gives this an interesting pace. It really is an hour and forty minutes of an old guy talking with a mix of archival footage, archival conversations, typewriter simulation, war footage, skull dropping experiments, and close-ups of nasty teeth. There are little touches--a freezing on McNamara's face while he still talks--that give this some flash, but this isn't something that should be mandatory viewing for Americans because of the documentary style. It's the message of these 11 lessons where McNamara talks about things that are scary because they really could happen, things that are scary because they almost happened, and things that are scary because they actually did happen. There's real tension in a chilling story about how we were "this close" to nuclear war, and that's despite me having a rudimentary knowledge of 60's history and knowing how it all turned out. I also found his discussion of Kennedy's death very touching. This one guy lived so much history, and it was amazing to watch him tell about what he's learned from it all. You know, because those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it, and all.
2 comments:
McNamara is a fascinating old codger who was in the middle of everything. I also loved the score, style (love when the director yells questions offscreen), and nuggets of inside information. He is very touching when talking about Kennedy, and it is tragic when he discusses the events and logic that led us into the Vietnam war. Thanks for watching this one. Glad you liked it. Also a 17, for me.
If we're still doing it, the doc replacement would be "The Invisible War", one of this year's upbeat Oscar nominees and must viewing for parents.
Of course I'm still doing it!
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