its foggy

Throughout the documentary we, as the watchers, are bombarded with facts not only from Robert McNamara’s experience, but also from government records. It shows us the hard facts, giving the movie credibility, its pathos is strong because many of the facts are introduced in a way that make the choices made to be thought of as reasonable.

Every time that the documentary changes ideas a new rule is displayed on the screen. These lead the audience in the direction that the director wants us to go. It allows us to understand the meanings that are behind the footage, sound bites, and pictures. We are shown another side of the war in terms of these rules. They are meant to be our guidelines. The director knew that by placing these into the documentary that the audience would be steered into thinking what he wanted us to.

He juxtaposed the applications of many of the rules in two different American conflicts, whether it was the Cuban Missile Crisis or World War II. He allowed the audience to see that when the rules were followed that the conflicts would not be looked back upon as horrible mistakes that could have been prevented.

I also like that we are shown Robert McNamara as a person with human emotions, not just an evil man who tried to destroy Vietnam.