http://festival.sundance.org/2005/docs/05Awards.pdf

What are the forces that shape and propel American militarism? This award-winning film provides an inside look at the anatomy of the American war machine.

He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning "military industrial complex," foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.

Deploying the general's farewell address as his strategic ground zero, Eugene Jarecki launches a full-frontal autopsy of how the will of a people has become an accessory to the Pentagon. Surveying the scorched landscape of a half-century's military misadventures and misguided missions, Jarecki asks how — and tells why a nation ostensibly of, by, and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a system whose survival depends on a state of constant war.

Jarecki, whose previous film, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, took such an unblinking look at our ex-secretary of state, might have delivered his film in time for the last presidential election, but its timing is also its point: It does not matter who is in charge as long as the system remains immune from the checks and balances of a peace-seeking electorate. Brisk, intelligent, and often very, very human, Why We Fight is one of the more powerful films in this year's Festival, and certainly among the most shattering. ~Diane Weyerma

Eugene Jarecki

Film Comments:

As a viewer of this movie at the premier last year in Park City, I was deeply impacted about the truth and objective reporting that this movie tries to portray about our country and the logical (and historical) progression that lead us to war. When Jarecki was asked in PC why he did not release the film during the election, he steadfastly stated that the film was not about Bush bashing, but was about trying to show the American public how democracy works, (both pro and con). I do not usually get worked up about a film or politics, but after viewing this film a year ago, I have talked about it continuously and it's lessons to all who are willing to listen. I steadfastly believe that this film should be shown in the classroom to educate, and perhaps forewarn our youth about being vigilant of our sometimes overreaching capitalistic tendencies. This is coming from an individual who has enjoyed the bounties of capitalism, but got a wakeup call.