Fahrenheit 9/11 v. Fog of War

[General Sibley]

Saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" Wed & then rented and saw "Fog of War" yesterday.    It's a good juxtaposition as to how a documentary should be made - Moore is ham-handed and clumsy, especially in comparison to Errol Morris.  Fog of War didn't mention Iraq once, but yet it spoke volumes more - and spoke much more eloquently - than F 9/11 did about war.

I'm not a GW Bush fan by any means, but FOW shows that war is waged by men who, one way or another, feel that their cause is righteous.   Robert McNamara in his aged wisdom speaks very sagely about the folly of war.   I highly recommend it, I wouldn't recommend F 9/11 though.  What kept running through my mind while I watched 9/11 was, " With clever (or even not so clever) editing, you can make Mother Teresa seem worse than Hitler".

[DJIMBO]

Yeah but McNamara is always wise after the event - he fully supported Rolling Thunder then criticises it completely afterwards.

[Walton]

Interesting comparison. I haven't seen 9/11 so it's hard to judge, but when I was watching Fog of War (which I think is a very good film) I kept thinking of Kubrick's Dr Strangelove, especially as Curtis Le May (Robert MacNamarra's superior in WW2) was the model for the character played by George C Scott in Strangelove. For me, the most interesting element of Fog of War is the constant inferrence that the people running the show are just human beings like the rest of us who may have good intentions but simply make mistakes, and sometimes very dumb mistakes. The key difference is that if I make a mistake in my profession, it won't result in the deaths of anyone - they make a serious error and God knows how many people could die. Dr Strangelove, to me, is Stanley Kubrick shouting as loudly as he can 'for God's sake, the people running things are stupid and crazy and they will get all of us killed!' I have to say, it was hard not to reach a similar conclusion watching Fog of War...

[General Sibley]

It's funny you mention Dr. Strangelove. I didn't think of it while watching these movies, but FOW & 9/11 definitely have some very Strangelovian moments.  That's why I liked FOW much better than 9/11.  Moore makes Bush out to be this evil idiot who's got a big secret agenda to steal an election so he can go to war and enrich himself and his Saudi pals.   I prefer the position that you have fallible human beings sitting in positions of immense power, whose decisions can determine life and death.  And the emotional pressure of making these decisions can lead to irrational and dangerous behavior.   I don't know how demonizing someone advances your position much, it's probably counterproductive.

I grew up in an era where McNamara was portrayed as the cold-hearted number-crunching warmonger.  FOW makes him very good-hearted and human.  I'm assuming Bush's heart is in the right place too, but now you're talking about a guy who gets his inspiration from God instead of Curtis LeMay...  

[Jupa]

Yeah,and a guy who is just plain DUMB.