No End in Sight

Last updated
No End In Sight
No end in sight poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Charles Ferguson
Produced byCharles Ferguson
Jennie Amias
Audrey Marrs
Jessie Vogelson
Alex Gibney  (executive)
Narrated by Campbell Scott
Edited byChad Beck
Cindy Lee
Music byPeter Nashel
Distributed by Magnolia Pictures
Release date
  • July 27, 2007 (2007-07-27)
Running time
102 minutes
Country United States
Language English

No End in Sight is a 2007 American documentary film about the American occupation of Iraq. The directorial debut of Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Charles Ferguson, it premiered on January 22, 2007, at the Sundance Film Festival and opened in its first two theaters in the United States on July 27, 2007. By December of that year, it had a theatrical gross of $1.4 million. [1] The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 80th Academy Awards. [2]

Contents

Interviews

To a large extent, the film consists of interviews with people who were involved in the initial Iraqi occupation authority and the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), which was later replaced by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Thirty-five people who had become disillusioned by what they experienced at the time are interviewed. In particular, many of those interviewed claim that the inexperience of the core members of the Bush administration — and their refusal to seek, acknowledge or accept input from more experienced outsiders — was at the root of the disastrous occupation effort. Other interviewees include former soldiers who had been stationed in Iraq and authors and journalists who were critical of the war planning.

Those interviewed are:

The three Iraq veterans — Moulton, Yancey, and Gonzales — were selected for inclusion from a larger group of Iraq veterans who were considered. Ferguson chose to include those three in the film because they provided "the most interesting, the most representative, and the most poignant" interviews. [3]

Content

No End in Sight focuses primarily on period immediately following the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It asserts that serious mistakes made by the administration of President George W. Bush during that time were the cause of subsequent problems in Iraq, such as the rise of the insurgency, a lack of security and basic services for many Iraqis, sectarian violence, and, at one point, the risk of complete civil war.

The film notes the lack of advance planning for the post invasion governance of Iraq. It criticizes Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for not providing enough troops to maintain order or declaring martial law after the country was conquered. The ORHA had identified at least twenty crucial government buildings and cultural sites in Baghdad, but none of the locations were protected during the invasion; only the oil ministry was guarded. With no police force or national army to maintain order, ministries and buildings were looted for their desks, tables, chairs, phones, computers, and even large machinery and rebar, though Rumsfeld initially dismissed the widespread looting as no worse than that which takes place during riots in American cities. Among the pillaged sites were Iraqi museums containing priceless artifacts from some of the earliest human civilizations, which, it is suggested, sent chilling signals to the average Iraqi that the American forces did not intend to maintain law and order. Eventually, the looting turned into an organized destruction of Baghdad. The destruction of libraries and records, in combination with "de-Ba'athification", ruined the bureaucracy that existed prior to the U.S. invasion, and ORHA staff reported that they had to start from scratch to rebuild the government infrastructure.

According to the film, there were three especially grave early mistakes made by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA:

These three mistakes are cited as the primary causes of the rapid deterioration of occupied Iraq into chaos, as the collapse of the government bureaucracy and military resulted in a lack of authority and order. When Islamic fundamentalist groups moved to fill this void, their ranks swelled with disillusioned Iraqis.

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 92%, based on 98 reviews, with an average rating of 8.15/10; the website's critical consensus states: "Charles Ferguson's documentary provides a good summary of the decisions that led to the mess in post-war Iraq, and offers politically interested audiences something they'd been looking for: a lowdown on the decision making". [4] On Metacritic, it has a score of 88 out of 100, based on 28 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". [5]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 4 stars out of 4 and said: "This is not a documentary filled with anti-war activists or sitting ducks for Michael Moore. Most of the people in the film were important to the Bush administration." Ebert concluded by stating that "I am distinctly not comparing anyone to Hitler, but I cannot help being reminded of the stories of him in his Berlin bunker, moving nonexistent troops on a map, and issuing orders to dead generals." [6]

Richard Corliss of Time praised the film, saying it "stands out for its comprehensive take on how we got there, why we can't get out", and opined that everyone should see it, calling it "the perfect stocking-stuffer for holiday enlightenment." [7] [8]

A. O. Scott of The New York Times called the film "exacting, enraging" and said that "[Charles Ferguson] presents familiar material with impressive concision and impact, offering a clear, temperate and devastating account of high-level arrogance and incompetence." Scott explained that "most of the movie deals with a period of a few months in the spring and summer of 2003, when a series of decisions were made that did much to determine the terrible course of subsequent events" and "the knowledge and expertise of military, diplomatic and technical professionals was overridden by the ideological certainty of political loyalists." He remarked: "It might be argued that since Mr. Bremer, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz declined to appear in the film, Mr. Ferguson was able to present only one side of the story. But the accumulated professional standing of the people he did interview, and their calm, detailed insistence on the facts, makes such an objection implausible." In conclusion, Scott called the film "sober, revelatory and absolutely vital". [9]

Rob Nelson of the Village Voice said: "Masterfully edited and cumulatively walloping, Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight turns the well-known details of our monstrously bungled Iraq war into an enraging, apocalyptic litany of fuck-ups." Nelson said the film "is certainly a film about failure, perhaps the ultimate film about failure. Or maybe a film about the ultimate failure?", and "is less a work of investigation (or activism) than history." In his view, "Focusing on the war itself, Ferguson is chiefly interested in compiling a filmed dossier of incompetence—not so much to argue that the war could have been won and won early, but to suggest that the magnitude of arrogant irresponsibility will carry aftershocks as far into the future as the mind can imagine", and "Ferguson's approach is at once relentless and, with the help of Campbell Scott's flat narration, chillingly calm and composed". He remarked that "The evidence speaks for itself, and No End in Sight—addressed to those who'll be swayed against the war by ineptitude more than immorality—is the rare American documentary that doesn't appear to preach to the converted, or at least not only to the converted", and "For those of us who've opposed the war for years, the movie is at once intensely frightening and, it must be admitted, disturbingly reassuring." [10]

Top ten lists

No End in Sight appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007: [11]

Awards and nominations

At the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, No End in Sight won the Special Jury Prize: Documentary. [12]

The film received the following awards in the 2007 film season: [13]

On January 22, 2008, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, though it lost to Taxi to the Dark Side , which was made by Alex Gibney, the executive producer of No End in Sight. [14] Additionally, Charles Ferguson received a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay. [15]

Book version

A book version of No End in Sight is available from the publisher PublicAffairs. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Bodine</span>

Barbara K. Bodine is an American academic and former diplomat. Bodine formerly directed the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI) and lectured at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She currently serves as Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coalition Provisional Authority</span> 2003–2004 transitional government of Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion

The Coalition Provisional Authority was a transitional government of Iraq established following the invasion of the country on 19 March 2003 by the U.S.-led Multinational Force and the fall of Ba'athist Iraq.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jay Garner</span> United States Army general and United States Marine

Jay Montgomery Garner is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who in 2003 was appointed as Director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, making him the immediate replacement of Saddam Hussein as the de facto head of state of Iraq. Garner was soon replaced by Ambassador Paul Bremer and the ambassador's successor organization to ORHA, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Bremer</span> American diplomat

Lewis Paul Bremer III is an American diplomat. He was the de facto head of state of Iraq as leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, from May 2003 until June 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Ferguson (filmmaker)</span> American film producer

Charles Henry Ferguson is the founder and president of Representational Pictures, Inc., and director and producer of No End in Sight (2007) and Inside Job (2010), which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Ferguson is also a software entrepreneur, writer and authority in technology policy.

<i>My Country, My Country</i> 2006 American film

My Country, My Country is a 2006 documentary film about Iraq under U.S. occupation by the filmmaker Laura Poitras.

Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17 stated that Iraqi laws do not hold over contractors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civilian Police Assistance Training Team</span>

The Civilian Police Assistance Training Team or CPATT is a multinational advisory team operating within the US-led coalition in Iraq to rebuild the Iraqi Police.

Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2: Dissolution of Entities signed by Coalition Provisional Authority on 23 May 2003, disbanded the Iraqi military, security, and intelligence infrastructure of President Saddam Hussein. It has since become an object of controversy, cited by some critics as the biggest American mistake made in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein and as one of the main causes of the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS).

Nanette Burstein is an American film and television director. Burstein has produced, directed, and co-directed several documentaries including the Academy Award nominated and Sundance Special Jury Prize winning film On the Ropes.

<i>Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience</i> 2007 American film

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience is a 2007 American documentary film directed by Richard E. Robbins, which portrays the lives and experiences of American combat soldiers who have been to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

<i>The Hurt Locker</i> 2008 film by Kathryn Bigelow

The Hurt Locker is a 2008 American war thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. It stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, and Guy Pearce. The film follows an Iraq War Explosive Ordnance Disposal team who are targeted by insurgents and shows their psychological reactions to the stress of combat. Boal drew on his experience during embedded access to write the screenplay.

<i>Restrepo</i> (film) 2010 documentary film

Restrepo is a 2010 American documentary film about the War in Afghanistan directed by British photojournalist Tim Hetherington and American journalist Sebastian Junger. It explores the year that Junger and Hetherington spent, on assignment for Vanity Fair, in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, embedded with the Second Platoon, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army. The Second Platoon is depicted defending the outpost (OP) named after a platoon medic who was killed earlier in the campaign, PFC Juan Sebastián Restrepo, who was a Colombian-born naturalized U.S. citizen. The directors stated that the film is not a war advocacy documentary, they simply "wanted to capture the reality of the soldiers."

<i>Standard Operating Procedure</i> (film) 2008 film by Errol Morris

Standard Operating Procedure is a 2008 American documentary film written and directed by Errol Morris that explores the meaning of the photographs taken by U.S. military police at the Abu Ghraib prison in late 2003, the content of which revealed the torture and abuse of its prisoners by U.S. soldiers and subsequently resulted in a public scandal.

<i>Inside Job</i> (2010 film) 2010 American film

Inside Job is a 2010 American documentary film, directed by Charles Ferguson, about the late-2000s financial crisis. Ferguson, who began researching in 2008, said the film is about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption", amongst them conflicts of interest of academic research, which led to improved disclosure standards by the American Economic Association. In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">De-Ba'athification</span> Policy undertaken in Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)

De-Ba'athification refers to a policy undertaken in Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and subsequent Iraqi governments to remove the Ba'ath Party's influence in the new Iraqi political system after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. It was considered by the CPA to be Iraq's equivalent to Germany's denazification after World War II. It was first outlined in CPA Order 1 which entered into force on 16 May 2003. The order declared that all public sector employees affiliated with the Ba'ath Party were to be removed from their positions and to be banned from any future employment in the public sector.

<i>Last Days in Vietnam</i> 2014 film by Rory Kennedy

Last Days in Vietnam is a 2014 American documentary film written, produced and directed by Rory Kennedy. The film had its world premiere at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 2014.

<i>Jim: The James Foley Story</i> 2016 American film

Jim: The James Foley Story is a 2016 American documentary film about the life of journalist and war correspondent James "Jim" Foley, directed by Brian Oakes. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2016, and on HBO on February 6, 2016.

<i>Time</i> (2020 film) 2020 American film

Time is an Academy Award-nominated 2020 American documentary film produced and directed by Garrett Bradley. It follows Sibil Fox Richardson, fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, who was serving a 60-year prison sentence for engaging in an armed bank robbery.

<i>Flee</i> (film) 2021 animated documentary film

Flee is a 2021 adult animated documentary film directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen. An international co-production with Denmark, France, Norway, and Sweden, it follows the story of a man under the alias Amin Nawabi, who shares his hidden past of fleeing his home country of Afghanistan to Denmark for the first time. Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau serve as executive producers and narrators for the English-language dub version.

References

  1. Kilday, Gregg (2008-01-04). "Iraq documentary generates book and Oscar hopes". Reuters . Retrieved 2008-01-31.
  2. "The 80th Academy Awards | 2008". Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  3. Crowdus, Gary Alan; Ferguson, Charles (Fall 2007). "No End in Sight: An Interview with Charles Ferguson". Cinéaste. 32 (4): 18–19. JSTOR   41690553 . Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  4. "No End in Sight". Rotten Tomatoes .
  5. "No End in Sight (2007): Reviews". Metacritic . Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  6. Roger Ebert (2007-08-10). ":: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: No End in Sight". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved 2007-09-12.
  7. Corliss, Richard; “The 10 Best Movies”; Time magazine; December 24, 2007; Page 40.
  8. Corliss, Richard; “The 10 Best Movies”; time.com
  9. A.O. Scott (2007-07-27). "In the Beginning: Focusing on the Iraq War Enablers". The New York Times . Retrieved 2007-09-12.
  10. Rob Nelson (2007-07-24). "Surge This". Village Voice . Retrieved 2007-09-12.
  11. "Metacritic: 2007 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic . Archived from the original on 2008-01-02. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  12. "2007 Sundance Film Festival award winners". The Salt Lake Tribune. 2007-01-28. Retrieved 2007-01-28.
  13. No End in Sight (2007) – Awards
  14. "80th Annual Academy Awards Nominees". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2008-01-22. Archived from the original on 2008-01-23. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
  15. Thielman, Sam; McNary, Dave (February 9, 2008). "Cody, Coens bros. top WGA Awards". Variety. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
  16. Amazon.com: No End in Sight: Iraq's Descent into Chaos: Charles Ferguson: Books
Interviews