Dargo wrote: ↑March 31st, 2023, 11:48 pm
Enjoyed reading your take on this film, Andree. And yes, your disgust with it is now duly noted and a feeling that is perfectly understandable considering that the subject of this film never states or issues any apologies but only regrets for his leading role in one of America's biggest foreign policy blunders nor for all the lives throughout the world that were so unnecessarily lost due to his poor judgment and advice.
However, I must say as I finished reading your take on this film, I began to think of the analogy you drew with your clever "extended Ford advert" comment, and then thinking that this might be more than a little misplaced, and I'll tell you why. It's because I don't ever recall seeing any Ford sponsored commericals in which it's shown a Ford Pinto exploding after being rear-ended. You remember, such as those film clips of that particular model Ford that were made public a few years after many people had already lost their lives while driving this Ford produced vehicle on the roads of this country.
And so in other words and what I'm suggesting here is that while you apparently believe documentarian Errol Morris "sold out" by even presenting McNamara a venue to express himself and his rationalizations, couldn't you at least also admit that by presenting his subject warts and all, Morris' film at least deserves some credit for that and to say nothing of its value as being a cautionary tale for future generations?
(...well, I think so anyway, and have thought so since the day I watched this film some years ago now)
I suppose we expect most documentaries to take on or critically examine their subjects, though that's not always the case.
I just thought that Morris would have provided more pushback to McNamara than he does in the film. He does ask him some
questions, but most of them seemed pretty softball to me. One of the best things about this movie was the archival footage,
which takes one back to the time period.
The comment about this film being like an extended Ford commercial was mostly light-heartened and of course Ford would
never make a commercial about the disastrous Pinto. McNamara did claim, about Ford cars in general, that he was trying to
make them safer, using the egg crate analogy. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. I did get a kick out of his mention
of the Ford Falcon as an example of a compact car to challenge other compacts. My grandfather had a Falcon. I guess it was
a servable vehicle, but not one a teen would want to be seen driving around in the neighborhood.
I don't know if Morris presented Mac warts and all. He allows him to come off as fairly reasonable and somewhat likeable, so I
don't know if people not familiar with the subject would see this as a cautionary tale. Of course McNamara was just one
part of the whole Vietnam story. I would advise people to read more about McNamara and Vietnam than just rely on this particular
film. I also got a laugh out of the subtitle of the film about McNamara's 11 rules, which reminds me of another SOD, Donald
Rumsfeld, who was famous for his rules and the known unknowns, unknown unknowns etc. How come these dudes with all these
rules always manage to screw things up?
Apparently, Big Mac's 11 rules didn't include one about minimizing civilian casualties.:
In 1962, McNamara supported a plan for mass spraying of the rice fields with herbicides in the Phu Yen mountains to starve
the Viet Cong out, a plan that was only stopped when W. Averell Harriman pointed out to Kennedy that the ensuing famine
would kill thousands of innocent people. In late 1962, McNamara ordered planning to withdraw the American advisers from
South Vietnam in 1964 as according to Pentagon calculations the war should be won by then. At the time, McNamara told
Kennedy: "There is a new feeling of confidence that victory is possible". {Wiki}
My name is McNamara, I'm the leader of the band,
I don't mind killing people, though my look is always bland.