So I had a really hard time writing this paper\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6er, blog post. Its not like I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have anything to say, its just the words just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to come out right. I think I might be a bit burned out, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to do my best here, so I apologize for a seeming lack of organization, or even focus, as at this point, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just happy to be able to put coherent sentences together. Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy I actually had something to say! Thanks to everyone who helped me shake up my writing process to get this done, and thanks to Dr. C who made this a blog post rather than a formal paper so I could just start writing.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
I decided to write on Errol Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Fog of War<\/em>, because the film\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ideas interested me, but also because I own the movie, and with all the blocks I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been having, I thought being able to pop the disk in at any time would be really helpful to my inspiration and writing process. One of the things that really interested me about the way Morris filmed his interview of McNamara, which the film is primarily made up of, interspersed with some older footage of McNamara, Kennedy, Johnson, World Wars One and Two, as well as the Vietnam War. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really sure why Morris had chosen to show McNamara in this way; in fact, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t notice it until the third time I watched the movie. After reading Jean-Louis Baudry’s article “The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in Cinema”, I think I can answer that question, as well as shed some light on some of Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other directorial decisions. Baudry refers to Plato and Freud\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ideas throughout his article, translating them to apply more to film. In looking at Plato\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s description of philosophers in a cave, Baudry points out that they are all chained, not only by their feet, but also by their necks. Later in the article, he notes that they would remain chained even if they were given the opportunity to free themselves because it is the only life they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve every known. Depicting only McNamara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head and shoulders consistently throughout the film contributes to this feeling that he is chained, not, in this case, physically, but mentally. While, at the end of the film, we see McNamara walking down a street and later in a car, we never see past his head and upper torso. We know and see he has the freedom to move, but Morris still imposes visual restraint on how we view him, thus contributing to the idea that he is a prisoner, just like Plato\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s philosophers. Of course, this also contributes to the feeling the audience is chained, just like Plato\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s philosophers, by the beck. The viewer has no control over what they see, and cannot move their heads to see the rest of McNamara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body. Throughout the article, Baudry focuses on the idea of immobility. Though he never directly ties this thought in with cinema, he does relate it to thought, and I believe, as the article is relating to cinema, the reader is to understand and make the connection on their own that this also applies to the way we visually see people in films.<\/p>\n Earlier in the film, Morris shows us a short clip of McNamara waving his arms violently\/enthusiastically (maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little of both?), and we then cut to shot of <\/a>Khrushchev doing the same as he addresses an audience. While Khrushchev\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shot is longer than the one of McNamara, showing some of his legs, he is confined behind a podium, constraining him a way similar to the way the frame constrains McNamara. While Khrushchev was not imprisoned after the duration of his service in the USSR, he was carefully followed and watched by the KGB until his death. This actual physical restraint is depicted visually in the way he is framed in the film, and the connotation carries over the McNamara who, even after leaving the Johnson administration, is still under close scrutiny by the media.<\/p>\n On page 208 of his article, baudry notices, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the subject which Plato describes, the prisoner in the cave, is deceived\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6he is the prey of illusions.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Later, he makes the connection between the cave and the cinema, noting that just as the philosophers in the cave must remain, in some way, perpetual children, so \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the cinematographic apparatus brings about a state of artificial regression\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (219). In light of this, I think it is safe and fair to make a connection between the prisoner and the film viewer, but also, as Baudry says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the person who plays the main part in dream scenes is always the dream himself\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (215), tying McNamara himself to the prisoner in the cave. In my mind, this works well, as both McNamara and we, the viewers, are at Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mercy; he may pick and choose what he would like to show of McNamara, and we have no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153means to act in any way upon the object of [our] perception, change [our] viewpoint as we would like\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (220). This, along with Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Interetron, which allows us to make eye contact with the person being interviewed, contributes to a feeling of solidarity between viewer and film subject; tying to the two together ensures we will feel more for and be more interested in the film\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s subject (unless, of course, you are my fianc\u00c3\u00a9e, who hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t liked a single movie I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve showed him\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6hope for his appreciation of film is slim, but at least he likes a good action movie every now and again\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6maybe I should start there). We know we are linked to McNamara, to continue Baudry’s analogy, chained with him, most notably in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lesson Ten: Never say never,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when McNamara tells us, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153never answer the question that has been asked of you, answer the question that you wished had been asked of you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This not only keeps the viewer, or the question asker, in the dark as they never receive a straight answer, but also keeps McNamara in the dark, in his chains, as he can never enter into a true dialogue with others because he never answers them directly.<\/p>\n Very early on Baudry mentions something that interested me quite a bit, though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure how to interpret it. He notes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153both distinguish between two scenes, or two places, opposing or confronting one another, one dominating the other. These aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the same places; they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t respond point by point\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (206). After reading this section of the article several times, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still not entirely sure what Baudry is saying in the context of the article, but I think the idea ties over very well to something I noticed in The Fog of War<\/em>: at several times, two particularly noticeable, Morris shows McNamara on one side of the screen, cuts, shows him on another side of the screen, cuts again, and then pans slowly to show him, once again, on the opposite side of the screen. For me, this technique seems to be a clue to the viewer that what we are seeing, or, rather, what we are hearing McNamara tell us, is not the truth, but what he, as a prisoner of the cave, has been deceived into believing (of course, this is contingent on Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s viewpoint \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way of conclusively proving that McNamara is presenting what he believes is true or presenting a carefully constructed lie). So, during \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lesson 2: Rationality will not save us,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as McNamara is talking about his college experience during the Great Depression, McNamara recalls that he was privileged in going first to college, and then to graduate school, yet the Depression doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to touch him or impact his life (only the lives of others). This is a small example of the way what McNamara says doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t match what was actually historically happening, and the first instance of it I noticed. Later, in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lesson Five: Proportionality should be a guideline in war,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when McNamara admits both he and General Lemay were behaving as war criminals, the frame pauses and the camera slowly pans from right to left as McNamara talks about how Lemay did something he knew was wrong, but did anyway. There are two primary and important things going on here. First, as the frame freezes on McNamara, it captures him in the moment of admitting he did things that would, if he had lost the war, cause him to be convicted as a war criminal, keeping him as a prisoner in the frame and in the moment. Secondly, as before, the camera movement from one moment of close personal reflection, keeping McNamara more central in the screen, to moving to the farther left of the screen, shows he has moved away from introspection, and is now only analyzing the motivations and actions of others \u00e2\u20ac\u201c saying things that do not accurately depict the truth.<\/p>\n These ideas tie into another thing Baudry points out, the prisoner \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is led to place and to suppose between the projector, the fire, and the screen something which is itself a mere prop of reality, which is merely its image, its copy, is simulacrum: \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfigures of men and animals in wood or stone or other matters\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 suggestive of studio objects of paper mache d\u00c3\u00a9cor, were it not for the more striking impression created by their passing in front of the fire like a film\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (211). McNamara uses his figures as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mere prop of reality,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which allow him to separate himself from reality. Later, however, when he goes to Vietnam and hears the accounts of the soldiers there and sees the impact of the war first hand, he is no longer able to ignore reality, though he will not admit it to the press, only the President. Baudry points out the same is true in film, noting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in the case of all talking machines \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one does not hear an image of the sounds but the sounds themselves. Even if the procedures for recording the sounds and playing them back deforms them, they are reproduced and not copied. Only their course of emission may partake of illusion; their reality cannot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (211). So, the images of McNamara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trip to Vietnam mark a turning point not only in his thoughts on the war, but on the viewers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 as well, as we are now supposed to have moved from seeing the war in a more positive, necessary light, to a position where the war is too brutal to necessitate the loss of life the United States underwent. Despite this use of sound, I think the film uses printed words the most as an indicator of the truth, as something that cannot be copied or deformed. For example, when McNamara says he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to suggest he was the one who advised the fire bombings of Tokyo, the camera shows a series of documents with his signature or recommendation that the method of attack be changed. This happens at several other points in the film; usually when McNamara is telling us something Morris cuts to newspaper articles or political cartoons that suggest McNamara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s viewpoint is either skewed, or, in Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opinion, flat out wrong.<\/p>\n Throughout the film, Morris uses many of the tape-recorded conversations from the Cuban Missile Crisis, conversations between McNamara and Kennedy, as well as conversations between Johnson and McNamara. Sometimes these conversations appear in conjunction with images of the described events, and at other times we see them paired simply with a moving image of a large-reel tape player (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure this has a real name, I just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what it is). The first time we hear a recorded conversation paired with a tape player is when Johnson is telling McNamara he wants to address the Vietnam War in one of his speeches. For most of the audio clip, Johnson is actually reading excerpts of a document written by someone else. In this case, a distortion of ideas is possible, and they are certainly copied; yet, what we see and hear is not. The audio, paired with an image of a simple object that is clearly not distorted or marred, allows the viewer to think what they are seeing is the truth. Yet, we are reminded what we see is only a short portion of life, and may not represent the whole truth, as at the end of the clip, as McNamara acquiesces to Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s request, the camera slides down the side of the tape player, showing a timer, and revealing that the conversation we just heard was only roughly two minutes and twenty seconds long, and thus cannot be seen as representative of the more than three year relationship between the two men.<\/p>\n Another thing that surprised me about the film were Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interjections during McNamara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interviews. After seeing The Thin Blue Line<\/em>, I thought Morris only interjected or rather, included his interjections and comments in the final film, when absolutely necessary, as in his final interview with David Harris. In The Fog of War<\/em>, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this is the case. Morris, at times, interrupts McNamara mid-sentence, which I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think was necessary in an interview setting \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in a conversational setting this would be completely appropriate, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it belongs in an interview. After reading Baudry’s article, I thought this might be part attributed to Morris playing the man behind the curtain, but after watching a few scenes again, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the case. In my opinion, these are examples of Morris exerting his control over the viewer. As Baudry has already noted, the viewer has no control in a cinematic setting. Yet, Morris has control over all we see and hear, and to a certain extent, experience. He not only teases us by interjecting at times we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect him to (even if I might have wanted him to make that comment or ask that question, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think all viewers would have) but also through the images he shows us. For example, after McNamara, in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lesson Seven: Belief and seeing are both often wrong,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says they later learned the second torpedo attack didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually happen, the camera \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rewinds\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or reverses the shot of a torpedo hurtling towards a ship. This teases us as films can change and manipulate reality, or what is seen, but the viewer can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. I want to make clear what I mean when I say reality here \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily mean actual or historical reality, but immediate reality, or the reality of what we are experiencing. In this case, the film, and McNamara have both told us there was a torpedo attack, and we accept and take that to be reality, but the film quickly rescinds that, not only rewinding us to a place before <\/em>the supposed attack occurred, but quickly moving us forward to a future where the attacks never even took place. We see this again in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lesson Ten: Never say never,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when the fallen dominos right themselves, showing the viewer \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what might have been.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This again teases the reader and reinforces the idea that we have no true control over out immediate reality and experience.<\/p>\n I also found Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s use of cutting to a black screen before resuming his interview with McNamara interesting. While I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe Baudry’s article sheds any real light on Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motivation for this, I have an idea I think works. Often, I believe these black screens are used as something similar to the modern novel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interstices. For those of you who may not know (I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until recently), an interstice is what you call the small space, or break if you will, between paragraphs or sections of a novel. In the novel, these serve to represent a space where the reader must fill in the blanks \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ie: a relationship is consummated, someone has died, a length of time has passed, etc. Usually, I think Morris uses his blank screens in a similar manner \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to either suggest that the viewer must fill in what has happened, to mark a time change, or to imply that a question has been asked of the viewer and they must take time to contemplate it. The first two uses of these blank screens, I feel, are pretty self-explanatory, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll only give an example of his use of the third. The best example, I think, is seen in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lesson Seven: Belief and seeing are both often wrong.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A film clip of Johnson speaking at the public event shows him asking if we let Vietnam go down the drain \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to happen to all the other little nations?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d At the end of this question, Johnson pauses, and the screen goes black before Morris resumes showing images from the Vietnam War. This implies that not only those in the audience that day, but that we as viewers, also ought to consider this question and the way it applies to both Vietnam and more modern day concerns.<\/p>\n This post in Ben\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blog<\/a> is another good example of how Plato\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cave analogy plays out in Morris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s films. These people are blissfully happy despite the fact that things go horribly wrong for some because it is the only life they know; the philosopher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t unhappy in their chains because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only life they know as well.<\/p>\n Here <\/a>Tyler gets at my idea of immediate truth, or the truth seen in cinema as well as where the power in creating that truth or reality lies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with Morris \u00e2\u20ac\u201c when he talks about how the truth is hard to find even in a documentary dedicated to finding the truth because days or weeks of testimony and interviews are boiled down to two days, and that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly reflect everything that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened, reflect the whole truth. Tyler says one of the flaws of the film is that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see court documents and we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see Harris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s confession on tape. I think the omission of the court documents is a possible failing, as I think that plays the biggest role in The Fog of War<\/em> in depicting the truth, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think not having Harris on video is a failing. After all, as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve discussed throughout this post, sound is the one element that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be reproduced or duplicated, its reproduced exactly as it is recorded (unless its edited, but its not in the case of Harris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interview), and I think this is the part of the film that lends the most power and truth to the film.<\/p>\n Megs’s post<\/a> points out some more great use of prison imagery, this time in Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control in the form of cages. As Megs points out, the audience at the circus is in a cage, but this also, I believe, carries over to another audience — the film’s audience, or, us. Megs also calls the world outside our cage a “trap,” something that works very nicely with DUDE’S article, because, as he points out, staying in the cave or cage is our choice, and Megs has provided a nice motivation for staying there — we’re afriad something bad will happen if we leave our known world. This is seen nicely in The Fog of War, where McNamara is afraid, decades later, to speak against the Vietnam, even when he is no longer connected to the administration of the US government.<\/p>\n Here<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0 Beth discusses the way Morris uses images of print media to make clear what he either believes is true, or what was accepted as truth. Carmen<\/a> touches on the idea that we enter a movie theater ready to be chained, with minds open ready to accept what we see as our “immediate truth.” At the end of this post, she also touches on cinema’s ability to change and alter reality.<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to close with a nice little note detailing why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve enjoyed this class this semester. No, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not trying to suck up, I just want Dr. Campbell to know how this class has impacted me, and I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think of a better place to put it than with my final blog post. As you know, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m taking this class pass\/fail, mostly because its my fourth English course this semester, and the other three are all novel-based classes (two of them required massive papers as well), so I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to feel super overwhelmed. Regardless of whether I took this pass\/fail or not, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so very glad I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve taken this class as it gives me hope for my intellectual life after graduation. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to Grad school, and as of now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure what kind of job I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have, so my intellectual stimulation and community seems like it might be nonexistent right now. Or rather, it seemed nonexistent until I really got into the meat of this course. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m excited to have learned that I can turn a movie on and be confronted with so many questions that get me thinking, and its even more exciting because film is more of a group activity than novels are these days. What I mean is that you can watch a film with a group of people and have a more immediate shared experience as you encounter the film at the same time and in the same setting, even if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come to it with the same background experiences. So, even if I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make friends, and if I choose my films wisely, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to have some really thought-provoking and intellectual discussions with my fianc\u00c3\u00a9e (and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make friends\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6it just might take some time). The technology aspect of this class also reminds me that I can find a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153learning community\u00e2\u20ac\u009d anywhere, and engage in discussion with people who may be a thousand miles away from me. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to be in a classroom, or even with other students to engage in this type of discussion. So, all I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need now to keep up with and continue with the academic analysis of novels, and now, films. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to love is a computer and a half-way decent internet connection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I had a really hard time writing this paper\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6er, blog post. Its not like I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have anything to say, its just the words just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to come out right. I think I might be a bit burned … Continue reading