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Path to War (2002)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
5/17
5/17:
Path to War is maybe the most compelling picture on the Vietnam War, at least from a political perspective.
For the final film of his long great career, John Frankenheimer details as much as possible about what went down at
the White House with LBJ, Robert McNamara, and Clark Clifford, among others, dealing with the Vietnam War for
165 long minutes, and every bit of it is as fascinating as Citizen Kane.
It's like watching a train wreck, making it difficult to keep eyes away. Now, we come to the most important question
of the film: is it historically accurate? Looking up the internet and reading through the comments, I've come to the
conclusion there isn't much to dispute. So, yes...Path to War is historically accurate.
The most infamous event of the Vietnam War is the Gulf of Tonkin incident which was staged to compel the United States
into war with North Vietnam. It didn't have to happen, and the United States had no business being in Vietnam. Hence,
the whole war was a mistake, and countless lives were lost for nothing.
The whole domino theory is a myth. Who cares if the countries turned to communism? That's not a threat to the
world but to corporations that want to preserve capitalism in order to conquer markets everywhere. They eventually did
but at a great cost to people and the environment which would probably be the undoing of civilization as we know it.
One reason for the loss of the U.S. support for the Vietnam War, which cannot be understated, is the extensive amount of
media coverage that was unfolding before the public which is unprecedented. American viewers saw too much on TV, having
become shocked by the atrocities. Therefore, the protests made a huge difference in forcing the White House to withdraw
from the war although it didn't happen during LBJ's but Nixon's term. The White House learned a valuable lesson from it by
making sure to curtail media's access to the war in order to keep the public deaf and dumb.
Back to Path to War, I have to say the acting is absolutely first-rate. The best performance goes to
Michael Gambon, who's well known as the nasty guy in
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. His likeness to
LBJ is freaky. As for Alec Baldwin, it's the best and most serious work of his career. As Robert McNamara, he
found a perfect role and put all the pieces together to place the stamp on what a great actor he is.
Forget the math. A case in point: Super Bowl LI. The New England Patriots was down 3-28 with two minutes left in the 3rd quarter.
The probability of the Falcons emerging as champions at that point was 99.5%. No team in the history of Super Bowl had ever
come back from more than a 10-point deficit to win the game. At that moment, it looked safe to place a million-dollar bet on
the Falcons to hoist the Lombardi trophy at the end. Now, we know how that went down.
Again, forget the math. It doesn't matter. Nobody can measure the heart and will of
people. That's what happened with the U.S., believing it could defeat Vietnam given its puny militaristic capabilities.
It's not a small country that people think it is. At the time, more than 30 million lived there; today, the poulation is
thrice that. During the Vietnam War, the United States sent roughly half a million soldiers. Do the math, and you can see
why it wasn't going to work out.
By the way, the Great Society, which was the most ambitious of its kind since FDR's New Deal, is widely regarded as a
failure. It's just impossible. LBJ was, at heart, a racist person who used the word "nigger" freely. Paradoxically, he
was all for signing the Civil Rights bills although he voted against them during his time as congressman. Now, that's
what I call a "politician."
By the way, the incident about the man dousing himself in gasoline before striking the match did happen. His name was Norman
Morrison, and it occurred outside right below Robert McNamara's Pentagon office. Today, he's a hero in Vietnam, and there's
a street in Da Nang named after him.
All in all, Path to War is a great political docu-drama and a fitting end to John Frankenheimer's illustrious
directorial career.