even a pencil has fear to

Its another post on The Fog of War because I’m really enjoying this movie! Anyway, I took it with me when I went to visit my fiancée and his family for Easter, and made him watch it with me. This was good for me since I got to see the first hour or so of the movie again. So I thought my fiancée would really like this movie since it focuses a lot on war, and he was in the Air Force ROTC all through college; while he’s decided to go into the armed forces, all of his college friends now serve in some branch of the armed forces. So before the movie begins, I’m telling him what it’s about so he’ll be prepared. “It has some action, like, there are scenes of old war footage and stuff, but it’s basically an interview with Robert McNamara.” “You mean the idiot from the Vietnam war?” This, I’ll admit surprised me a bit, since I’d never heard McNamara called an idiot before, not that he comes up often in every-day conversations. Naturally, I wanted to know why McNamara was an idiot, so I asked. “Because, he tried to apply math and formulas to war.” Now, my fiancée is also and engineer, so he loves his math and equations and all things that I, as an English major, don’t really understand. “Well, what’s wrong with equations and war?” This makes sense to me – its wrong to apply math to a situation where millions of human lives hang in the balance, and I expect my fiancée to say this, especially because several of his friends are currently serving in Iraq. But, no. He says “because there are too many variables in war, so you can’t come up with an equation for it.” Um, okay. I’m convinced this isn’t Morris’s point of view, especially in light of one scene halfway through the film, where you can’t tell if the people and city Morris shows while McNamara is talking about killing millions of people is in Japan or in America. I think Morris is saying very clearly, “you can’t turn people into numbers, into an equation.” Maybe for McNamara and my fiancée it’s a math thing. Maybe its an armed forces thing – you know its war and you know what you’re getting yourself into, so you better be prepared to die, or maybe its something else that I can’t figure out. I’m also having a hard time figuring out the organization of this movie. When I watch it, it makes perfect sense, but when I think about it later, it doesn’t make so much sense to me. Also, Morris is doing some pretty blatant cuts during McNamara’s speech, which makes me wonder if Morris is manipulating his conversation. Yet, the short conversation between Morris and McNamara at the beginning of the film seems like its there to show that McNamara frequently said things that either directly addressed Morris or suddenly went of topic, and he expected Morris to edit it out and fix it later. This doesn’t seem to be the case in any other of Morris’s movies (not that I’ve seen them all, so its possible it takes place in Mr. Death), so I’m sure there must be a good reason for it, I just wish I knew what that reason was!

Okay, so I still haven’t seen Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, but hoping to be able to see it tomorrow afternoon, if all goes well on my massive paper writing and rewriting I have scheduled for tomorrow. But, because I know I shouldn’t be talking about ideas in a film I haven’t seen, I wanted to mention The Fog of War, of which I’ve seen about half of so far. At the halfway point, I adore this film, but I feel like its something I need to watch many, many more times. One of the reasons I think I like this movie soo much is because of the subject matter; 13 Days, with Kevin Costner, has been one of my favorite films since high school (and made me quite the Adlai Stevenson fan), and I was thrilled to see an interview with one of the principle players in the Cuban Missile Crisis. I also really enjoyed it because I think we see, or rather hear, a different side of Morris in this film. It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak from behind the camera, which I loved, because he seemed so passionate about the material; so was I, and Morris just charmed me even more. One of the things that has really struck me is McNamara’s discussion on the “efficiency” of war. It was more efficient he claims, to firebomb and burn countless cities and kill thousands of men, women, and children than to let American troops attempt a land invasion and be killed by the thousands. This really god to me, mostly, I think, because I have an uncle who flew F-16s in the Air Force until about a year and a half ago. He served in the Gulf War, in Turkey, Iraq, and had two tours of duty in Afghanistan, in addition to being in Washington DC on September 11. He told me a story once about he was talking with another pilot friend who flew another kind of plane (which I can’t remember) about the efficiency of their weapons systems. My uncle insisted that because of the computer aid in his missiles he was more accurate in hitting his targets rather than accidentally hitting housing developments, thus killing fewer innocent women and children. His friend protested and showed him statistic books, which showed that, because my uncle’s targets were primarily water treatment and storage facilities, he killed far more women and children by contaminating or eliminating their water supply. It might have been more efficient in winning the war, but its not more efficient in preserving the lives of those who cannot decide if their country goes to war or not. I also think its interesting the way Morris shows how everything in McNamara’s life seems to boil down to statistics. He includes the anecdote about he and his wife’s contraction of polio at the same time as a statistical improbability to show how events often cease to be events for McNamara and become numbers, just as people do. These numbers become statistics, and these statistics can be disposed of any way we choose because they do not think or feel, they do not exist as anything other than an intangible number. I can’t wait to watch the rest of this movie and then watch it again and again…just as soon as I graduate.

I’m not sure I agree with Tyler’s post and all the adoring comments it’s recieved. But then again, I still haven’t managed to see the film (AGH!) so maybe I’m just missing what everyone seems to be trying to articulate. It seems to me that what’s being described are, pretty much, four different ways to worship God. None of these descriptions seem to quite get at all of, or even half of, the qualities a Biblical God possess. They are, rather, ways we worship God by trying to conform ourselves to his image. And yet if we’re conforming ourselves, we’re in essance creating ourselves, which makes us God-like. But not God. After all, the Bible says “all our riches are as filthy rags compared to the glory of the Lord.” (this isn’t exact, but it captures, I think, the essance of the verse. But maybe we’re not talking about God in a Biblical sense; that’s just what I think of when someone says God. How does one become a stand-in for God? I ask this in both a filmic and novelistic sense, as I’m all over the Christ-character concept, but I don’t think I’ve encountered a God-like figure. How do you, anyway, represent someone/something who is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. No human has all the answers, we can’t even figure out what truth is, so how can we portray ourselves as even coming close? Maybe someone can help me out!? I promise to try and see the movie soon, but I’m halfway through The Fog of War right now, and I’m finding it STUNNING (but more on that later). Besides, talking about the concepts of the movie seems to me to be almost more “brain-charging” than talking about them in the context of the film. Doesn’t Morris want us to take them outside of his films and engage with them anyway? But that doesn’t mean I won’t watch. I will make a valiant effort to see this, arguably, fantastic movie.

I wasn’t able to make it to the showing of Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, as I had a previous commitment, but I wasn’t able to make it that either because I was suddenly stricken with the plague at just about 7 o’clock on the dot. I believe I managed to get a wicked case of food poisoning from OFF-CAMPUS FOOD!, What has the world come to? I also missed what I hear was an excellent presentation Friday recovering from said plague. My apologies to the group. I did, however, look at Brad’s post

I also found this video “Twenty-Five Documentaries You Must See Before you Die,” which is, I discovered, a series of great documentaries the World Movie Channel will air during the month of April.

Three Morris films appear on their list: at number seven, The Thin Blue Line, at number 19, Fast Cheap and Out of Control, and at number twenty-one, The Fog of War. If I’m not mistake, he’s the filmmaker with the most films on their top list.

I’d also like to plug a few of the other documentaries on this list: To Be and to Have, which comes in at number three, is amazing. It’s a French film, but you can watch it with subtitles and not feel you’re missing much – its so good it almost transcends language. Its about a man who teaches in a one-room school house, so its got a lot of cute kids and many heartwarming moments, but its beautifully done and the kind of documentary I would expect Morris to make if her were inclined to produce something about the education of young children. Spellbound, at number fifteen, is also quite good, though I’m not so sure it deserved the high ranking it received. In my opinion, its equal with Mad Hot Ballroom, which is much more triumphant than Spellbound; I certainly wouldn’t equate it with a Morris film. Grey Gardens comes in at number two, and is another fine documentary, although it is, I think, a bit bizarre. If you’d like to see the whole list, go to http://www.worldmovies.net/25docs/, and feel free to plug any documentaries you think we must watch!

I really wish I had this station now.

I found this nifty little video with interview of Errol Morris interspersed throughout clips of the film. Alas, as I’m posting this, I’m not sure if it’s any good as I’m in the Combs computer lab, and there are several other people working here with me so I don’t want to turn the sound on and disturb them. Image wise, I think it’s an interesting idea, to pair Morris with arguably his most epistemological, and in some ways, I would argue, personal, films. Anyway, I promise to watch this clip with the sound on later tonight or early tomorrow morning when I’ll be able to use a computer with sound.

EDIT: Wow this clip is out of sync. Its still interesting to listen to Morris’ thoughts interspersed throughout the movie, but it does require some imagination to hear Randall Adams’ voice coming from Morris’ body.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking a lot about the conclusion to The Thin Blue Line. Dr. Campbell mentioned that Morris had spent some time doing work as a private investigator, which surprised me until I heard his interview with David Harris. Morris would ask a question, Harris would reply with a response that seemed to insulate he had dome SOMETHING, was much more implicated in the murder than he had told the police, and I just wanted to yell, “YOU DID IT! TELL ME YOU DID IT! I KNOW YOU DID IT!” and was waiting for Morris to make a similar comment. But he didn’t; instead, he followed up with a slightly related, but seemingly innocuous question. It was maddening for me. But in the end, Morris got what amounts to a confession, which I suppose makes him a better integrator than me. I wonder also if this is a technique used by investigators and detectives, to talk around the subject for so long you aggravate the criminal into confessing, after all, they need to tell someone (at least this is what Chuck Palahniuk says in his novel Haunted).

Friday I asked about the last interview with David Harris, the one that was pretty much a confession that freed Randall Adams. I think it interesting that Morris didn’t intend to record this conversation in this manner – it just happened. I don’t think it takes away from the film at all, as Casey said, she thinks just the image of the tape recorder really sets the mood, and I agree. What I think is interesting about this is that we naturally assume this was Morris’s intention, a choice he made. It reminded me of a story Dr. Kennedy told me last semester when we were studying Milton’s Lycidas. One of the Romantic poets, I forget which one, actually got to see Milton’s drafts of the poem and was incensed. “Milton shouldn’t have had to revise!” he cried. We tend to think of literary geniuses as able to write their most famous, epic works in one draft, which isn’t really the case. They are, like us, only human. I think the same idea carries over to directors on a much wider basis. We always think everything in a movie is the director’s choice, which, I suppose, is natural as the director is usually the one editing the film. DVD’s of “Director’s Cuts” add to this mystic, as it purports that somehow the studio is limiting the creative vision of this director. Anyway, its nice to know the director doesn’t always makes these decisions, sometimes pure gold is handed to them, and then, the mark of a great director becomes the ability to recognize something other than their original intention worked much better.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I began to wonder a few days ago why we’re watching documentaries in a class where every other unit is comprised of adaptations. I don’t think we can just chalk this up to “oh, well, Dr. Campbell just wants to change things up a bit.” No. I am convinced there is some deeper connection here. So, last weekend I was driving to Roanoke, and, to my great surprise, when I hit Afton Mountain, it was SNOWING. Not only was a sad because it was snowing when I wanted it be warm, but I was having a hard time seeing (don’t worry, this does have a point, but it might take me awhile to get there, so just bear with me). The snow wasn’t sticking to my windshield, but it was melting when it hit it, and my window was getting moist and blurry. Don’t worry, I wasn’t in danger of careening off the side of the mountain, I could still make out shapes, it just wasn’t the way I was used to seeing things. What was really cool is that the snow started to stick to the mile marker and exit signs (I guess because they were metal they cooled faster). From a distance, I couldn’t see what they said, but as I got closer, I could see faint outlines of town names and numbers. I thought to myself, “this isn’t like reality; it’s a representation of reality. It’s reality in the snow” (Yes, I’m a dork and thought this or something similar). This reminded me of documentaries in that what we are seeing is still a representation. We see what the director shows us; if something isn’t in full focus, we don’t see it well and thus, are given a different picture of reality than we might see if we were present ourselves. While documentaries are comprised of “real” people portraying themselves, we still see what they, and the film maker, show us. Even if the person being filmed lied, their lies would still reveal who they are at their very core (someone who lies, perhaps?), but we are still seeing them in the light another person views them. No matter how hard you try, I don’t think you could portray people in a documentary without commenting on how you think they should be viewed. So thus, every documentary is an adaptation of reality. At least, this is how I like to think about it so I have a nice overarching theme for this semester.

I was super excited to see this comic up today at overduemedia; its actually the third strip in a continuing story line, but I found this the most applicable to our class, not to mention rather funny (and trust me, its even funnier if you’re familiar with the characters). Dewy is the youth/teen librarian with a love of graphic novels, gore and sci-fi. Tamara (the first character to speak) is the vegan, peace-loving children’s librarian. Mel is the rather conservative, always PC branch manager whose opinions are always contradicted by the events and people around her. So what’s funny? Well, I think the fact that the girls have several “bad” movies, which they clearly intend to watch. Since the description of the movies Tamara gives is highly contradictory to both women’s personalities, one can only assume the strip means to imply there is something “good” about these films, some deeper characteristic or value that attracts theese women to these films and keeps them watching. While they might be seen as “bad” by society, it might be, and I like to think, the case is that the films are so little known they garner little to no public attention, thereby regulating them to the realm of “bad.”

Hmmm…I wrote this awhile ago, but apparently hit save rather than publish and just now noticed it. No wonder I could never find this post on the feed!

I’ve been thinking a lot about censorship lately, catalyzed by a recent visit to the Library of Congress, and fed by one of my many, fabulous conversations with Nokuthula Mazibuko. The Library of Congress collects documents (books, newspapers, pamphlets) they think are important or indicative of a culture in countries and regions where there are no organized libraries to save in their collections. This is all well and good for a library that’s used only on a national level; however, the Library of Congress is used on a national scale. So then, we aren’t really accurately portraying these societies, or, at the very least, we fail to capture the way they see themselves, making me think this time would be better spent helping these areas develop library systems. Nokuthula and I talked about censorship through access to books. I brought up my surprised that while I was living in Maseru, Lesotho, the country’s capitol, I couldn’t buy any books. Well, I could by a books on Lesotho distributed through the tourism office, a Sesotho language book and dictionary, and a Bible, all in English, but nothing else; if I wanted books I needed to travel four hours into South Africa. Nokuthula told me there is only one bookstore in all of South Africa that sells books in her native language, and that section amounts to only a tiny shelf in a very large store. Therefore, those who do not speak or read English would be kept from accessing these books and the knowledge and ideas they contain.

Last Wednesday, Carmen mentioned to me she often had trouble reading films, and felt she needed filmmakers to “dumb it down” so she could understand then. I began to wonder if there are ways to limit people’s access to film in a manner similar to what is done with books. Obviously, there are restrictions of age on many films, but all of those can be “gotten around” if you know someone over the age of 17 who will buy you a movie ticket. In my thinking, I decided language, and the way we as Americans decide what films are “good,” are forms of access censorship. In America, we tend only to value “American-made,” English-language films. By “American-made,” I don’t mean the films have to exclusively star American actors and actresses, be made by an American director, writer or producer, but they do have to be released by a major American studio to garner our attention and be considered a “good,” even “great” film. In fact, we don’t really mind British films, as long as they are released in America, by an American studio, and it has to be a big studio. Oh, I suppose I should explain where I’m getting this from – the Oscars. With categories like “Best Foreign Film,” we’re making a feeble attempt to include other cultures and languages in our film experience, but falling quite short. Because the Oscars are American, but, like the Library of Congress, internationally recognized as a barometer of “film goodness,” we ought to do our best to present films on an even field. I had the great pleasure of seeing one of last year’s nominees for “Best Foreign Film,” Yesterday, a beautifully filmed and acted and touching South African Film. In my opinion, it ought to have been considered in other categories. Alas, this fabulous film has gone quite unnoticed by the general public of America. Another example of “access censorship” in filmmaking is the Nolan brother’s Memento, which I had the immense pleasure to see and rent while I was living in Britain in 2001. Memento was released to a general audience in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2000. It wasn’t shown in the United States until January 16, 2003 at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and never in wide-release in theaters. It is my opinion that this fine and quite innovative film went largely unnoticed by the general public, who is skeptical at best about films with a “foreign” stigma, as well as films that weren’t first released to a wide audience in America. Maybe filmmakers think the general public is too dumb to “get” these films, but with more exposure, I’m sure the public will learn to love and understand these films. Besides, you don’t have to understand everything the first time you see it to enjoy and appreciate a film. So, let’s open our eyes, and the eyes of the public, and start recognizing small-budget and foreign films as real contenders in the Academy Awards. And, let’s congratulate the Academy for recognizing a wonderful small-budget “indie” film, eLittle Miss Sunshine, this year.