Foggy is Right!

In the documentary Fog of War, the audience focuses on McNamara and his story about his life and purpose. The director did an effective job in the way he progressed the argument. Analyzing the way the director pieced everyhting together kept me from the reaction that I had from Hearts and Minds, which was rather expolosive. The director already has a strong ethos developed because of the peson he chose to focus on and have speak to the audience. I automatically felt that since he was one of the key roles in shaping the president's decisions, then he was truthful. He was also 'truthful' in my eyes because he felt he made a mistake and wanted us to fix this in the future. I felt alomost sympathetic for MvNamara. The documentary starts with telling the key elements in McNamara's life that helped shape his ways of thinking. It made the audience believe that he was a genius and had the right credentials to advise our president. He was one of us at one point and made his way to the top. This added to the ethos of the film and made the audience feel that they are in good hands.

Not only did the film cover Vietnam, but talked about World War II and how that shaped the 'fog' that takes place during this time period. The facts that were revealed by McNamara is shocking, but it does not take long to just accept it because this sort of 'fog' takes place everyday in our country. No one will ever know everything, and it's either comfortinf because we don't have the facts on our shoulders, or it's just wrong because we are being lied to by our leaders and have so little control considering we are a democratic country.

The information that came from real voice footage and an actual decision maker that definately made me lean towards a side of this issue. Not only did this provide real information, but also made me realize that the president is not the only person involved in the reality of Vietnam or war itself. The president does have to take a lot of the blame, but the people have to know that there are more people involved. This documentary made that clear.