Bastidores da Guerra

It is hard to watch 'Path to War' and avoid remarking the similarity between historic and present circumstances. Although dedicated to the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, the film brings to mind the situations the current US President had to face - after being elected on an internal social agenda, he has to face an external conflict and runs down on a spiral towards an external war costly in American and other peoples human lives. The film is interesting by itself, although there may be many comments to be made on the accuracy of the historical details. 'Path to War' also succeeds better than other films in bringing to screen historical characters and giving them a life of their own - Johnson, Clark Clifford, Bob McNamara are well built film characters in the film. I recommend this film, and not only to the history fans - 8 out of 10 on my personal scale.

I tuned into this expecting to see something similar to the exciting, tension-filled "Thirteen Days," but these two movies are not at all alike. Even the titles tell the difference. "Thirteen Days" (about the Cuban Missile Crisis) is a compact story, while "Path To War" deals with events spread out over several years, and as a result moves more slowly and often in much less detail. It is in its own way, however, just as gripping.

"Path To War" is the story of the United States during the Lyndon Johnson administration as it spirals into war in Vietnam, almost against its will. Johnson is well portrayed by Michael Gambon, who manages to capture the complex situation the man was facing, both militarily and politically. Johnson, of course, assumed the presidency upon John Kennedy's assassination and inherited Kennedy's decision to increase US involvement in Vietnam. Johnson is constantly pushed by his military officials and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin), a holdover from the Kennedy administration, to take just one more step, to commit just a few more troops, to bomb just a few more targets in order to win the war. Every step fails, which leads to another step being necessary, until Johnson is hopelessly trapped in a war he can't win but that he can't get out of either. Feeling unable to trust the people who had been Kennedy's advisors, Johnson turns to Clark Clifford (a great performance here from Donald Sutherland) who originally opposes increased involvement in Vietnam, but who eventually realizes that the spiral has gone too far to be stopped and becomes an advocate of stepping things up on the grounds that there is nothing left to do but put everything into trying to win. It's a fascinating study of an entire nation; one that carefully avoids the unfortunate stereotype of Johnson as a warmonger, and instead depicts him as desperate to find a way out of this mess; one that just as carefully notes that Johnson didn't create this mess - he inherited it from Kennedy.

That, of course, is the subplot of the movie. Johnson spends much of the movie (as he spent his presidency) fighting the ghost of John Kennedy and looking over his shoulder at Robert Kennedy, not able to trust those who had been close to the Kennedy's, but unable to simply jettison them.

It really is fascinating movie, well worth watching. It isn't "exciting" in the sense that you'd be on the edge of your seat, but it's gripping and holds your attention well enough. 7/10.

In some ways the most dramatic illustration of the bifurcation of American society during 1968 is presented in this movie and then gone in the blink of an eye. LBJ is watching a series of TV broadcasts excoriating him. Among the clips is one of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who states that he (who had been silent on Vietnam for so long) can now no longer keep from speaking against violence and against the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, his own government. It's difficult to imagine Johnson recovering from King's speaking out. Blacks had been among his most resolute supporters for years. LBJ liked them and sympathized with them and they responded in kind. I did some minor canvassing for Eugene McCarthy earlier that year and was surprised to find that every black family I spoke to politely turned away my arguments. It didn't matter to them that they felt Vietnam was draining resources that were needed for domestic programs, or that the disenfranchised were suffering disproportionate casualties. (Know how many sons of Harvard died in Vietnam? Guess.) They fully supported LBJ because of his unyielding and thoroughly courageous stand on civil rights, as the issue was then called. How King's change of heart must have hurt him.

The movie as far as I can tell is pretty accurate. Inevitably, characters come and go, and the story itself is complicated enough to be occasionally confusing. If you want a more thorough analysis of how to go about letting slip the dogs of war, try Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest."

The acting is fine, with no one's performance outstanding. Frankenheimer's direction, with its drumbeats, hand-held camera, and fast editing of protest marches, recalls his "Seven Days in May." The script sometimes comes up with lines that are a little too epigrammatic to be swallowed whole.

LBJ's passionate commitment to the solution of domestic problems is carefully laid out, and it was real. His forte as a politician was in manipulating others in order to get his way and, minor earlier malfeasance aside, his way was one to be admired. What the film soft pedals or leaves out entirely is a side of his character that was really and truly vulgar and exceedingly unpleasant for subordinates. You didn't have to be a wuss to feel uncomfortable when, as a highly educated senior aide, LBJ would call you into the bathroom for a conference while he was taking a dump. The tongue lashings that Jack Valenti alone endured would fill up a marine boot's schedule for his entire stay on Parris Island. He was also an egomaniacal blowhard, and there is little of this in the film. While still Vice President, he ran into Russel Baker, at that time White House reporter for the NY Times, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into his office, shouting, "You -- I want to talk to YOU." He harangued Baker for half an hour, accusing the press of lying about his lack of power, of being outside the loop, as VP. Midway through his tirade, Johnson buzzed in his secretary, scribbled a note and handed it to her, then took up where he left off. When a weary Baker finally stumbled back into the hallway, another reporter said: "Do you know what it was he wrote on that note to his secretary? It said, 'Who is this I'm talking to?'"

A bit of this side of LBJs character might have gone some distance in explaining his gradual and reluctant commitment to war. He was the kind of guy who could not admit that he was beaten, a tragedy really, in the same way that Hamlet was a guy who could not make up his mind. It wasn't just that his advisers misled him. It was that he couldn't bring himself to back down. This is one of the things that worried me when I heard our next president from Texas say, "My mind is made up, and I'm not going to change it, because I'm not the kind of guy who changes his mind." (No? Hold on to your hats, boys.)

You come away from this movie filled with a genuine pity for LBJ who, in Vietnam, had got hold of his baby. He really had little choice but to resign. When he did, he went to his ranch and manipulated local merchants so they put his order for an oil sump on the fast track, using the same friendly but conspiratorial tones that he had once used in running the country. He grew his hair out to Beatle length, crept into Doris Stearn's guest room in the mornings in order to have someone to talk to, a lonely man. A tragic story, well done.

effort at depicting the essence of Lyndon Johnson and his tragic presidency. Michael Gambon is a superb actor and his portrayal of the 36th president is by far the best I've seen yet. Most films depict LBJ as essentially some Texan buffoon without a clue. In reality, Johnson was a superb politician whose hopes and dreams for his country were ultimately thwarted by a war he never wanted in the first place. 'Path to War' shows how a man with all the strength, talent and skill to do potentially great things finds himself losing the battle on both fronts. The war on poverty that he so dearly cared for being defeated by the war in Vietnam, and as his own administration and the country turn against him, the downfall of a political giant.

I would suggest that this film be shown in high school classrooms as a way to educate our young people about LBJ, the man, his times and his legacy. Vilifed though he may be by many, 'Path to War' is truly a fantastic portrayal of the human side of the man and how he struggled to do what he thought was right for his country and for the world.

I expected little from this 'movie' but was pleasantly surprised. After all, it was a made for television mini series originally, it was about politics and U.S. ones at that, it was very long (both episodes were played as one cohesive piece in Queensland). On the plus side, it seemed to have an ideal cast, I like most of Alec Baldwin's work very much, I greatly admire Michael Gambon's work, Donald Sutherland needs no explanation as someone to watch, and that was just the beginning. Furthermore, I had seen the political drama "Nixon" not long ago and was greatly impressed by that (how could you not be with Anthony Hopkins at the helm); so things could have gone either way.

Thankfully, my doubts were not realised and I can safely recommend this saga to any thinking person, particularly those of us like myself who actually experienced those times. I suspect to those born later it might seem somewhat like a 'boring' history lesson unless that moment in history bears any particular fascination.

For Australians particularly it may be interesting as, just like with previous conflicts (World Wars I and II as well as Korea) and all wars since including Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and currently Afghanistan, we stood shoulder to shoulder with our American brothers in Vietnam, fighting and dying in battle. We knew why we as a nation were there in the thick of it, so it was very interesting indeed to see why America was there in the first place, and this docu-drama provided some of the answers.