Film Analysis: The Fog Of War

When watching The Fog of War the first thing I noticed as primary sources were the actual recordings of the conversations between McNamara and former Presidents, Kennedy and Johnson. In addition, his testimony of his accounts of his actions at those times would be considered primary sources, since it’s a first person report. Similar uses of primary sources were found in The Unknown Known, first person reports of situations that Rumsfeld participated in; however one difference was the use of memos. From my understanding, the memos were taken from a recorder, a dictation machine that recorded the voice memos and then typed out on paper. Overall, there were over 20,000 memos just in a six year period from Rumsfeld, giving a since of how many could of possibly been done over the many years of his careers. In both films, the use of news “at that time” was used as primary sources. Often citing very quickly different news headlines both written and
The emotional responses that were evoked by The Unknown Known were feelings that were unfavorable and destitute. I felt like it was acting and not truth. Rumsfeld’s performance did not induce any empathy from me during the movie. It was difficult to watch with all seriousness. I often found myself shaking my head or saying things out loud in a disregard tone as if he could actually hear me. It brought up feelings of anger, mistrust, and uneasiness. Continuing with The Fog of War and speaking to the emotional responses that were evoked by film were far different, it felt authentic. I felt a sense of truth from his testimony. I felt an emotional connection to McNamara and at times and found myself getting teary eyes when he would get teary eyed. I felt a human connection to McNamara when he spoke, I was eager to hear more. I was left with some questions but overall felt that he was sincere; therefore I felt at ease, comfortable and