Original title: The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, illustrating his observations of the nature of modern warfare. It was directed by Errol Morris and features an original score by Philip Glass. The title derives from the military concept of the "fog of war", which refers to the difficulty of making decisions in the midst of conflict. The film was screened out of competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature of 2003. In 2019, it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Reviews for the film were very positive. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 96%, based on 142 reviews, and an average rating of 8.32/10; the website's critical consensus states: "The Fog of War draws on decades of bitter experience to offer a piercing perspective on the Cold War from one of its major architects." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 87 out of 100, from 36 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
McNamara: I was on the island of Guam in his command in March of 1945. In that single night, we burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo: men, women, and children.
Morris: Were you aware this was going to…
Kennedy: The advantage to taking them out is?
McNamara: We can say to the Congress and people that we do have a plan for reducing the exposure of U.S. combat personnel.
Kennedy: My only reservation about it is if the war…
Johnson: I always thought it was foolish for you to make any statements about withdrawing. I thought it was bad psychologically. But you and the President thought otherwise, and I just sat silent.
McNamara: The problem…
McNamara: It was just confusion, and events afterwards showed that our judgment that we'd been attacked that day was wrong. It didn't happen. And the judgment that we'd been attacked on August 2nd was right. We had been…
Morris: When you talk about the responsibility for something like the Vietnam War, whose responsibility is it?
McNamara: It's the president's responsibility. I don't want to fail to recognize the tremendous contribution…
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