Errol Morris’ Documentary about Documentation: The B Side
Errol Morris’ Documentary about Documentation: The B Side I’ve been a fan of Errol Morris ever since his 2003 Academy Award Winning feature, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, which is, essentially, as the title suggests, a feature−long interview with McNamara. Having had a background in journalism, Morris is perhaps one of the greatest interviewers in cinema history. Famously, the reaction to the movie, which is about a contentious and nation−dividing event in American history, the Vietnam War, left individuals on both sides of the divide disappointed. Some people thought that Morris was too easy on McNamara, who has been widely seen as the primary hawk as U.S. Secretary of defense during the Vietnam period, and therefore primarily responsible for the war itself. Others thought that Morris was too hard on him, juxtaposing shocking images of the war with McNamara’s calm confidence, which could be perceived as a kind of smugness, in the interview. But what emerges in the film is a complex portrait of the man, rife with new insights and revelations about a period in history about which so many of us had preconceived notions as to how these events unfolded. […]