Director: Frederick Wiseman
Year Released: 1987
Rating: 1.5
The Strategic Air Command (in charge of operating nuclear weapons) gets an overview by fiercely independent filmmaker Wiseman. His impassive camera - one of his trademarks - wants to remain neutral, leaving you to apply your own ideology to the images seen, however the coldness isn't all that successful, and what remains - aside from a few exterior shots of cars driving, outdoor picnicking and sports - is a monotonous recording of the training procedure Air Force recruits have to go through. I gather that his 'impassiveness' is a unique form of 'passive-aggression,' and that he really wants you to find holes in the process of teaching people how to activate weapons that will destroy human life ... but what I saw never struck me as being faulty in the least - the inappropriate cadets are weeded out by the stern staff members so the most qualified people remain (is there anything wrong with that?). The final scene - Graduation - where the General talks about Russia, its (in his view) lunatic hostility towards the U.S. and the General's belief that God Wants America To Win is the closest Wiseman gets to genuine psychological probing.
