The Fog of War quotes

View Quote I've always wondered where explanations end and excuses begin. And is there a difference between excuses and explanations ... is an excuse a bad or self-serving explanation? I don't know. Maybe Newton's Law is an excuse for why bodies just stay at rest or in motion unless acted on by some external force. I look at the McNamara story as the-fog-of-war-ate-my-homework excuse. After all, if war is so complex, then no one is responsible. Errol Morris' response to Ron Rosenbaum's suggestion that the film be re-titled Eleven Excuses of Robert S. McNamara.

View Quote Morris, Errol. "New Morris Film Traps McNamara in a Fog of War".

View Quote "A friend of mine has said, 'You can never trust someone who doesn't talk a lot, because how else could you know what they're thinking?' This could be true. There's a belief that if you sit people down and you let them talk that they will reveal who they are. And then this also contrary to the whole idea about how you're supposed to investigate stuff, how you're supposed to interview people. After all, you're supposed to ask difficult questions. You're supposed to - particularly if you want to find something out, you're supposed to back the subject against the wall, press them hard and get them to 'fess up in some way or another. This is part of many of the criticisms that I heard about my film of Robert S. McNamara. That he should have been subjected to much tougher questions." Errol Morris

View Quote Morris, Errol. The Anti-Post-Modern Post-Modernist.

View Quote I had a lot of trouble with McNamara in the course of making this movie. Horrible disagreements about stuff I had put in the movie that he did not want in there. One of the major disagreements concerned the lessons in the film. There are 11 lessons. And he repeatedly said, 'You know, Errol, those are not my lessons. They are your lessons.' And I said, 'Yeah, yeah, they are. But they're extracted, of course, from things that you've said,' things that McNamara said, which is indeed the case. Perhaps not the lessons that McNamara would have chosen, but then, he was not directing the movie. I think that the lessons are all ironic. It's very odd to me that people talk about the film and they talk about the lessons without pointing out that there might be intended ironies with each and every one of them. But yes, they are for me ironic, particularly the last one in the movie: You can't change human nature. It tells you that all of the other lessons are valueless, that the human situation is indeed hopeless." Errol Morris

View Quote I saw the movie as a collaboration between the two of us. I never saw the movie, as I was making it, and I don't see the movie now, as my attempt to quote-unquote "get," go after, Robert S. McNamara. I saw it as an attempt to try to understand McNamara - to answer questions about McNamara. Morris, Errol. The Anti-Post-Modern Post-Modernist.

View Quote This thing is heavy. I'd like to thank the Academy for finally recognizing my films. Thank you so very, very, very much! I thought it would never happen. I'd like to thank my very good friends at Sony Pictures Classics, Michael Barker, Tom Bernard. No one would get to see this movie without them. My two producers - Michael Williams, Julie Ahlberg. Couldn't have made the movie without them either. My long suffering editors - Charlie Silver, Brad Fuller. And Karen Schmeer and Doug Abel, thank you also very much. And believe it or not, Robert McNamara, with whom, if he hadn't done it there would have been no film. Forty years ago this country went down a rabbit hole in Vietnam and millions died. I fear we're going down a rabbit hole once again. And if people can stop and think and reflect on some of the ideas and issues in this movie, perhaps I've done some damn good here. Thank you very, very much. Errol Morris' Academy Award acceptance speech.