Friday, December 11, 2009

Biggest Wow Moment of 2003

Robert here with some thoughts on 2003. This past decade was a fantastic one for documentaries. Truly great. But the best documentary of the decade was released in 2003 and comes courtesy Errol Morris. The Fog of War.

Morris is a successful documentarian because he knows how to get his point across in a wide variety of ways. Here it's not just the speech of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (who's both candid and slippery) but an endless sequence comparing fire-bombed Japanese cities and their American equivalents that had my mouth breathlessly agape in shock. Powerful film making indeed.

My apologies for the unnecessary subtitles.

4 comments:

Michael Shetina said...

The whole movie is absolutely chilling. That montage has to be seen to be believed. McNamara's bizarre mix of candor and whitewashing makes his legacy even more complicated. I mean, he just brushes off the use of Agent Orange but seems truly repentant over the firebombings.

MrW said...

The film is a shoe-in for my Top 10 of the decade. Probably Top 5 even.

Joseph said...

lol, why do you have to apologize for the subtitles?

Andreas said...

God, and how about the Philip Glass music, underscoring the dialogue with its eerie beauty? What a great movie.