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Path to War

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Watch Path to War with a subscription on Max, rent on Prime Video, or buy on Prime Video.

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Path to War brings Lyndon B. Johnson's full term to vivid life with terrific performances and a screenplay that provides an intimate look into a president's psyche along with the far-reaching consequences of his decisions.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

John Frankenheimer

Michael Gambon

Lyndon Johnson

Donald Sutherland

Clark Clifford

Alec Baldwin

Robert McNamara

Bruce McGill

George Ball

James Frain

Richard Goodwin

More Like This

clock This article was published more than  22 years ago

HBO's Powerful 'Path to War': The Drama That Was LBJ

Richard Nixon was sometimes called a Shakespearean figure, partly for the tragedy his presidency became, but the real Shakespearean figure in 20th-century American politics was Lyndon B. Johnson. He was in fact cruelly lampooned in his time by being made the subject of an off-Broadway play called "MacBird."

"Path to War," the new HBO movie about Johnson and Vietnam, may not have Shakespearean aspirations, but it certainly depicts Johnson as a toweringly tragic figure. The movie is so powerful and passionate in its portrayal, and actor Michael Gambon so commanding in the role of LBJ, that "Path to War" could play a major role in the reevaluation of this widely maligned chief executive.

The film, premiering at 8 tonight on HBO and only 15 minutes shy of three hours, is remarkably and unrelentingly compelling, a major accomplishment for the filmmakers when one considers that it's to a large degree a dramatized debate among government figures. It isn't easy to make a meeting cinematic, and the path to war is paved with meetings -- meetings in the Oval Office, at the Pentagon, in Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson's bedroom, and virtually wherever a meeting can be held.

Daniel Giat's screenplay skillfully shows us how Johnson's grand plan for a Great Society unraveled as he took America deeper and deeper into the Big Muddy. But Johnson was being taken, too, led into this mother of all quagmires by a battery of yammering advisers, many of them military men who kept insisting the war was winnable even as they spectacularly proceeded to lose it. Eventually, "stalemate" was the highest hope even they could hold out.

Giat's words come thrillingly to life because a great director, John Frankenheimer, is at the helm. Frankenheimer has experience with political thrillers and he tightens the screws with artful efficiency. His use of a somewhat melodramatic musical score on the soundtrack may make the film seem at times old-fashioned, but old-fashioned in a good way. That is, not so much old-fashioned as classic -- classic in tone, in style and finally, classic in stature.

Gambon is entirely up to the task of making a larger-than-life icon seem painfully -- and in the end, helplessly -- human. It is a performance of fire and brimstone, yes, and when Gambon as LBJ backs down a political foe or turns some underling into quivering mush, we can see what made Johnson so intimidating and so effective -- one character calls him "the best politician this country's ever seen" -- but he had more than one bete noire. As Vietnam flared up and criticism of Johnson reached a feverish pitch, he was always quick to blame the Kennedys, the Kennedy-lovers and the Kennedy legend for his troubles.

Where his martyred predecessor had been elegant and charming, the darling of the intellectuals (or Washington's version of intellectuals) and a symbol of sophistication, Johnson was, of course, a magnificent vulgarian for whom a nuance was a nuisance -- a man of action and not words who, if he'd had his way, might easily have gone down in history as the greatest liberal president since FDR. Instead, his time and indeed his soul were eaten away by a futile war in Southeast Asia that America had inherited from the French.

Implicitly the film asks one of the most maddening questions of history: If Kennedy had lived and served a second term in the White House, would America have become just as fatally entangled in the madness of Vietnam? Johnson had many of the same advisers Kennedy would have had, and Kennedy would have been no more anxious than Johnson to be known as the first American president to lose a war.

But then the movie is not some fleshed-out version of a political board game. It is foremost a truly shattering drama, a character study of a man who didn't have time to wrestle with his own inner demons because there were so many outer demons nudging him this way, urging him that way.

Gambon's portrayal is enormous and easily dominates the film, but with few if any exceptions the other members of the cast stand up to him, and Giat's script is especially commendable in the way it gives complexity to each characterization. It's no simple matter of hawks and doves competing for Johnson's heart and mind. George Ball (Bruce McGill) is indeed the one man in the inner circle who from the beginning warns that pursuit of the war is folly, that any increase in America's involvement can only lead to ruin. And yet gradually we see Ball become consumed by the war and by his sense of being a lone voice of reason and logic, as if being the only sane person has managed to drive him insane.

Similarly, Donald Sutherland's portrait of Clark Clifford is full of trenchant shadings and provocative details. What seems compassionate one moment turns coldly cunning the next. Clifford softens his opposition to escalation because he thinks it's best for Johnson's image to do so. Before it's all over, he's become nearly as hawkish as the colossally misguided Gen. William Westmoreland (Tom Skerritt). The tragedy of Vietnam is partly that the misguided were doing most of the guiding.

Alec Baldwin has the critical role of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a man relying on old ideas to fight what was for America a new kind of war (though perhaps not unlike the war in which the country won its own independence a couple of centuries earlier). One problem for Baldwin is that he's one of those actors who's chosen to have a high political (liberal) profile off-screen, so some viewers may find themselves looking for ulterior motives, rather than artistic ones, in the way he plays the part. But Baldwin does seem to find him an essentially honorable man -- honorable and pitifully self-deluded.

Gambon may not have Lyndon Johnson's accent down perfectly, but his raging-bull comportment seems right on the money. We see Johnson at his best as well as his worst, as when he cagily invites George Wallace up to the White House at a particularly crucial juncture in the civil rights movement. The pugnacious and bigoted Wallace (Gary Sinise) is brilliantly manipulated by Johnson into doing precisely what Johnson wants him to do. Before the meeting, Johnson says of Wallace, "I want his pecker in my pocket," and who could doubt the authenticity of a Johnsonian line like that?

Johnson takes immense pleasure in his political victories and indeed in his own performance as president; in an early scene he watches a videotape of his inaugural address and gives himself what amounts to a rave review. His devotion to the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights legislation is seen as more than a matter of personal pride, however; he zealously believes in the changes he thinks he can make. As loud and rambunctious and physical as he could be, Johnson could also wax poetic on the beauties of "the Texas hill country in the spring," then in the next moment regale colleagues with a metaphorical tale about a stud bull entering a corral full of cows. He uses a Cutty Sark bottle as a prop; you can probably guess what it's supposed to represent.

The war goes on and on and Johnson's popularity sinks lower and lower. He vows never to send in ground troops and a moment later, they're there. The numbers escalate wildly. At each stage he is assured by the generals that this next step will be decisive -- and often it is, but in the opposite way it was intended.

In a reflective moment, Johnson describes himself as a man going down in a plane: "I can crash with it and burn up, or I can jump and die." He is, finally, left with no desirable alternatives, his elite brain trust outsmarted by a nation of peasants whom they snobbishly regard as primitives. Those of us who lived through the era -- perhaps as college students marching around with burning candles, or doing whatever we could to avoid going to Vietnam ourselves and becoming part of the tragedy -- may be able, perhaps for the first time, to see the ordeal from Johnson's perspective.

We can sense the anguish he must have felt as he personally signed letters to parents of those who died in the war, ostensibly in service to their country. Frankenheimer and Giat for the most part stay inside Johnson and his lush isolated world, but the growing protests from outside make their way through the walls of the White House, and the filmmakers suggest that, unlike Nixon, Johnson was truly wounded by the vitriol he inspired, by such merciless and penetrating rhetorical chants as "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many boys did you kill today?" He may himself have been dying inside; we didn't really know that then.

The film isn't entirely grim. A scene in which LBJ, at the wheel of a big ol' white Lincoln convertible, with Lady Bird (a rather colorless Sarah Paulson) at his side, brings back the glorious, posterity-be-damned esprit of the man. The film's verisimilitude is helped by such minor details as the casting of John Valenti as his father, presidential adviser Jack Valenti, even though the young Valenti won't be winning any acting prizes. From whatever angle you approach it, though, "Path to War" is a tremendous achievement -- not as a history lesson but as a profoundly emotional experience.

Michael Gambon conveys both Lyndon Johnson's bluster and his anguish.Donald Sutherland, left, brings both cunning and compassion to the role of Clark Clifford, one of many officials to give President Johnson (Michael Gambon, right) questionable advice on escalating the Vietnam conflict in HBO's "Path to War."

path to war movie review

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Path to War

HBO’s lengthy reappraisal of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s presidency, The Path to War founders on its own contradictions. It attempts to rehabilitate Johnson (Michael Gambon) as a President whose considerable political and social policy achievements have been forever overshadowed by his escalation of the Vietnam War. By focusing on Johnson’s personal struggles to explain how a man with neither instinct nor stomach for colonial escapades came to flounder so deeply in Southeast Asia, the film inevitably, and ironically, skims over Johnson’s considerable domestic policy. It thus recreates the one-dimensional war-mongering, kid-killing figure once emblazoned on the forests of placards that waved over campuses across the US.

On the other hand, Path to War does fully capture the richness (and also the absurdity) of the technological and scientific hubris of the late ’50s and early ’60s, in which any situation, however complex could be reduced to, and solved by, a mathematical equation. Here it is exemplified by the unblinking faith of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin) in the right statistical analysis, rather than the right policy, as the key to victory in Vietnam. And it explores, in unusual depth, the way a single decision can generate its own terrifying momentum and a contradictory, if compelling, Alice-in-Wonderland logic.

Path to War resembles other (relatively) recent filmed histories: HBO’s own exploration of Churchill’s wilderness years during the 1930s, The Gathering Storm, for example, or Oliver Stone’s Nixon . All three make of their central character a caricature, yet all three subtly illuminate a complex cultural milieu and the almost accidental transmutation of contingency into irrevocable and bitter history.

No such ambiguity haunted the opening of Johnson’s elected Presidency, with which The Path to War begins. Swept back into power in 1964 with one of the biggest popular votes of the century, Johnson seemed poised to revolutionize America’s domestic politics, a strength accentuated by the movie’s low shots that let Johnson loom out of the screen. He didn’t reckon, however, with the fears and the determinism of the advisors he had inherited from Kennedy.

These advisors adhered passionately to George Kennan’s Domino Theory (the conviction that if one nation “fell” to Communism, others around the globe would follow). But they also believed that the exercise of human intellect (bound together with what British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, also elected in 1964, called the “white heat of technology”) could solve any geopolitical problem. However, this dazzling group of intellectuals failed to learn from the humiliations heaped on the colonial powers of Europe both the folly and the cost of trying to pit manpower and superior technology against ideological commitment.

In one of his most thoughtful recent performances, Alec Baldwin as McNamara encapsulates this delusion. His chubby, unmarked face, flat eyes, and uninflected delivery reflect the complacent assurance of this former president of the Ford Motor Company, who served both Kennedy and Johnson as Secretary of Defense. Delivering McNamara’s calculations — kill ratios, dead-to-wounded ratios, conventional-to-guerrilla force ratios — and reporting Westmoreland’s estimates of the additional forces he would need to win the war, Baldwin personifies the apparent rationality of the escalating and deadly folie a deux that sought in statistical science an infallible algorithm for victory. Nor does Baldwin miss a beat as, blank-faced in the long run-up to the ’68 election, he uses the same numbers to inform Johnson the war is un-winnable, and which precipitates his own sidelining to the World Bank.

Another strong performance by Donald Sutherland allows Path to War to explore the ethical conundrums that a single decision forces on all who accept it, however reluctantly. As McNamara’s successor and long-time Presidential adviser Clark Clifford, Sutherland abandons his initial fervent opposition to American escalation in Vietnam and advocates with equal decisiveness the ardent pursuit of the war. Turncoat? Perhaps, but he was also a man who, seeing his advice on restraint ignored, took the logical (to him) step of advocating, at whatever cost, the fastest extraction possible from a disaster in the making.

The complex work by Sutherland and Baldwin throws into sharper focus one of the key weaknesses of the film — the performance of British actor Michael Gambon in the role of Lyndon Johnson. One can see the appeal of casting Gambon. His most compelling performances (ranging from Brecht’s Galileo at London’s National Theatre 20 years ago to his charismatic reincarnation of playwright Dennis Potter’s alter ego, Phillip E. Marlow, in The Singing Detective ) have been of flawed sensualists, men of extraordinary physical and intellectual power. From time to time Gambon does bring off an uncanny rendition of Johnson’s most characteristic, often photographed look — a hawkish, predatory glare down at an unfortunate interlocutor. Too often, though, Gambon muffs his Texas accent and succeeds only in looking hounded, petulant and pusillanimous.

To be fair, the actor is not always working with a fully developed character. Longeurs flourish in the central section, after Johnson’s reluctance to escalate crumbles and before his re-energized fear of becoming a minor historical footnote between two golden Kennedys drives him to fire McNamara (in the time-honored, irrevocable style of a promotion) and begin negotiations about negotiations about peace.

Throughout this second hour, the script is so sympathetic to Johnson that the writers appear to portray him as a thoughtful man, driven to anguish by the dubious necessity of a colonial war that perverted him, his domestic policies and the Presidential image he had hoped to hone for history. The Johnson who appears on screen, however, looks more like a hounded cur, rampaging uselessly around the White House, and trailed nightly by an ineffectual Lady Bird in an armor-plated perm and fluttering Gothic nightgown. Nowhere in this film does one glimpse the backroom Democratic genius who took only four years to rise from neophyte Senator to Senate Majority Leader, and who gifted the South to JFK in 1960.

Even with these failings, Path to War deserves applause, albeit muted. It captures the heady (and unfounded) political optimism of the country that had successfully faced down its only rival for world leadership, the Soviet Union, four years earlier. It captures the enduring (perhaps the first occasion, but certainly not the last) inability of U.S. politicians and military leaders to understand that the projection of unassailable power and unmatched technology could not guarantee triumph or even avert defeat. Finally, the film captures the last historical moment when Americans both expected moral integrity from their President and believed that individual action could create it.

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

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PATH TO WAR

  • Post author: eenableadmin
  • Post published: August 5, 2019
  • Post category: Uncategorized

PATH TO WAR (TV MOVIE)

(director: John Frankenheimer ; screenwriters: Daniel Giat/LBJ biography by Robert Caro; cinematographer: Stephen Goldblatt; editor: Richard-Francis Bruce; music: Gary Chang; cast: Michael Gambon ( President Lyndon Baines Johnson ), Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin), Felicity Huffman ( Lady Bird Johnson ), Donald Sutherland ( Clark Clifford ), Tom Skerritt ( William Westmoreland ), Cliff DeYoung (MacGeorge Bundy), Frederic Forrest ( Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ), James Frain (Dick Goodwin), John Valenti (Jack Valenti), Bruce McGill (George Ball, Under-Secretary of State), John Alyward (Dean Rusk), Philip Baker Hall (Senator Dirksen), Sarah Paulson ( Luci Baines Johnson) , J.K. Simmons (CIA briefer) ; Runtime: 164; MPAA Rating: ; producer: Guy Riedel; HBO Films; 2002) “ The well-produced political drama plays like the TV movie it is .”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

It brings back bad memories of the architects of the Vietnam War and their hubris in making bad decisions that led to an unnecessary and costly war in Asia that divided the country. LBJ was arguably our worst modern-day presidents (some might say Hoover) until surpassed by the ineptitude and arrogance of the later American leaders Nixon. Bush ‘W,’ and Obama. The well-produced political drama plays like the TV movie it is. It’s inspired by the Robert A. Caro’s forgiving tome-like biography of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It was researched by historian Michael Beschloss, with writer Daniel Giat supposedly keeping it accurate and making LBJ seem human. John Frankenheimer (“The Young Stranger”/”All Fall Down”/”The Train”), in his last film, helms this as an inside look at the Johnson administration in action, but adds no new twists on LBJ’s path to war. Advisers argue for increased bombings in Vietnam before South Vietnam collapses, others argue instead for increased support of LBJ’s the “Great Society” to eliminate national poverty. Both ventures can’t together be funded. We already know that the winning voice for war was mainly made by the hawkish self-righteous Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin) . This pic lets us see how the main players acted during those tense times, and how the war effort brought down the president..

The pic added nothing to my enlightenment of why LBJ failed as a prez, and it made me nauseous to see again those familiar haunting names that I learned to despise.

REVIEWED ON 7/29/2015 GRADE: B-

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path to war movie review

Path to War

path to war movie review

Where to Watch

path to war movie review

Michael Gambon (Lyndon Johnson) Donald Sutherland (Clark Clifford) Alec Baldwin (Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense) Bruce McGill (George Ball, Undersecretary of State) James Frain (Richard Goodwin) Felicity Huffman (Lady Bird Johnson) Frederic Forrest (General Earle G. Wheeler) John Aylward (Dean Rusk, Secretary of State) Philip Baker Hall (Everett Dirksen) Tom Skerritt (General William Westmoreland)

John Frankenheimer

In the mid 1960s, President Lyndon B. Johnson (Sir Michael Gambon) and his foreign-policy team debate the decision to withdraw from or escalate the war in Vietnam.

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Path to War

HBO's "Path to War" is a fascinating, superbly acted expose of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Directed by John Frankenheimer and written by first-timer Daniel Giat, pic is sure to draw parallels to current politics while forcing its target audience of aging baby boomers and hippies to revisit an era of turbulence and passion.

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HBO’s “Path to War” is a fascinating, superbly acted expose of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Directed by John Frankenheimer and written by first-timer Daniel Giat, pic is sure to draw parallels to current politics while forcing its target audience of aging baby boomers and hippies to revisit an era of turbulence and passion. Frankenheimer, a master at handling political hot potatoes, offers up an even-handed look at the undoing of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society mystique by a war he never believed in.

Michael Gambon gives a powerful performance as Johnson, the bombastic president whose ill-fated administration became synonymous with a disastrous military conflict instead of with the civil rights and social programs that were his original agenda.

Pic begins with Johnson’s inaugural ball in 1965 after a landslide election. He begins his administration with grand designs on implementing his vision of the Great Society. But as he tries to take on civil-rights issues at the request of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (Curtis McClarin) and stare down Alabama Gov. George Wallace (Gary Sinise, in a repeat performance from that Frankenheimer-directed TV pic), the long-brewing situation in Vietnam interferes.

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Vietnam had been in a state of upheaval since the end of World War II, and by 1965 armed conflict had drawn an increasing number of U.S. soldiers.

To strategize how to end the conflict, Johnson gathers his advisers, many inherited from the Kennedy administration, including the hero of the Cuban missile crisis, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin), special adviser Clark Clifford (Donald Sutherland), Secretary of State Dean Rusk (John Aylward), undersecretary of state George Ball (Bruce McGill) and special assistant for national security affairs McGeorge Bundy (Cliff DeYoung). Despite Johnson’s better judgment and campaign promises to the contrary, Project Rolling Thunder is created in effort to stifle Viet Cong offenses.

Over Johnson’s years in office, his advisers waffle, money for social programs is diverted to the war and the public as well as old allies turn against the president, as it becomes painfully clear the war cannot be won.

Gambon commands the screen as Johnson, carefully balancing ego and determination, defiance and defeat. His portrait of Johnson is an American dream turned Shakespearean tragedy as he gives credence to the notion that four years as a U.S. president adds 10 years to one’s life.

Neither Gambon nor Felicity Huffman as Lady Bird Johnson really capture the physicality of their characters; Huffman squints too much and Gambon offers a less than convincing Texas accent. Still, the two convey a unique partnership dynamic, with Lady often hovering over a man with a heart condition in the most stressful situations.

Baldwin is contrastingly subdued as McNamara, a man high on his political clout until his conscience plagues him and his family. Sutherland is more of an emotional match for Gambon’s Johnson, acting as the voice of reason despite repeated rebukes.

The supporting cast, a virtual who’s who of Hollywood, is a testament to the caliber of the work here. The film features more than 60 speaking parts, but it’s still surprising to see talented actors such as Diana Scarwid and Tom Skerritt reduced to just a few lines. On the other hand, it’s nice to see character actors such as Bruce McGill have a chance to shine.

Director Frankenheimer provides a steady hand, faltering only in one or two forced scenes intended to convey Johnson’s growing alienation both politically and personally. Lensing by Stephen Goldblatt makes great use of Waldemar Kalinowski’s re-creation of the Johnson White House but blunders with a few superimposed images of outdoor Washington landmarks. The unfortunate hair and clothing styles of the time are well documented by May Routh.

HBO, Sat., May 18, 8 p.m.

  • Production: Filmed in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Calif., and Washington, D.C., by Avenue Pictures and Edgar J. Scherick Associates in association with HBO. Executive producers, Cary Brokaw, Edgar J. Scherick, Howard Dratch, John Frankenheimer; producer, Guy Riedel; director, Frankenheimer; writer, Daniel Giat.
  • Crew: Camera, Stephen Goldblatt; editor, Richard Francis-Bruce; music, Gary Chang; casting, Mindy Marin. 3 HOURS.
  • Cast: Lyndon Johnson - Michael Gambon Clark Clifford - Donald Sutherland Robert McNamara - Alec Baldwin George Ball - Bruce McGill Dick Goodwin - James Frain Lady Bird Johnson - Felicity Huffman Gen. Earl "Bus" Wheeler - Frederic Forrest Dean Rusk - John Aylward Everett Dirksen - Philip Baker Hall William Westmoreland - Tom Skerritt McGeorge Bundy - Cliff DeYoung Bill Moyers - Chris Eigeman Marg McNamara - Patricia Kalember Jack Valenti - John Valenti Walt Rostow - Gerry Becker Lucy Bird Johnson - Sarah Paulson Marny Clifford - Diana Scarwid Nick Katzenbach - Francis Guinan Joseph Califano - Robert Cicchini Martin Luther King Jr. - Curtis McClarin George Wallace - Gary Sinise Roby Wilkins - Albert Hall Pat Nugent - Christian Peppard Adam Yarmolinsky - Peter Jacobson Norman Morrison - Victor Slezak Lynda Bird Johnson - Gina-Raye Swensson

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Path to War (2002)

path to war movie review

(On Cable TV, October 2019) John Frankenheimer remains a major director even fifteen years after his death, and Path to War is noteworthy for being his last movie, a made-for-HBO production that nonetheless shows his consummate skills in putting together an interesting film. It’s easy to see why it wasn’t considered for the big screen: as a nearly three hours behind-the-scenes look at the way the United States gradually manipulated itself into launching the Vietnam War, it’s a cerebral topic that is best appreciated at home. Still, the flow of the film’s sequences and the care through which the actors are delivering their performance is clearly indicative of someone like Frankenheimer’s talents. The film itself is interesting in that it gives life to a geopolitical theory: the idea that Lyndon B. Johnston wanted to focus on his domestic agenda but found himself increasingly surrounded by people who all (regretfully) saw no way out of greater engagement, even those who had been forcefully opposed to the idea in the first place. There’s an interesting statement here about the inevitability of some processes once set in motion, and how powerless even the so-called most powerful people can be. Path to War may or may not reflect the entire truth about how the US got stuck in Vietnam, but it’s an unusual movie for even approaching the topic. Performance-wise, Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland and Alec Baldwin all deliver subtle, strong and somewhat atypical performances acting as historical characters. It can certainly be amusing to spot the various historical characters populating the story—all the way to the appearance of Jack Valenti, who worked at the White House before becoming a Hollywood figurehead. All in all, this is prestige made-for-TV filmmaking, tacking serious topics in a competent fashion. There’s an interesting link to be made between Frankenheimer’s 1960s wild political thrillers and the reality-based story presented in Path to War . In a way, he got to revisit his own past filmography in presenting the real thing.

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Path to War

Path to War

  TV-14 | biographical dramas | 2 HR 44 MIN | 2002

A powerful look inside Lyndon Johnson's White House in the dark years leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland.

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Path to War

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Path to war.

Directed by John Frankenheimer

A powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider's look at the way the USA goes to war—as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during the Vietnam War.

Michael Gambon Donald Sutherland Alec Baldwin Bruce McGill James Frain Felicity Huffman Philip Baker Hall Frederic Forrest Diana Scarwid Sarah Paulson Chris Eigeman Tom Skerritt John Aylward Peter Jacobson Gerry Becker J.K. Simmons Reed Diamond Gary Sinise Cliff DeYoung Francis Guinan Robert Cicchini Randy Oglesby RayVeness Brenda Wehle

Director Director

John Frankenheimer

Producer Producer

Writer writer.

Daniel Giat

Casting Casting

Mindy Marin

Editor Editor

Richard Francis-Bruce

Cinematography Cinematography

Stephen Goldblatt Nancy Schreiber

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Cary Brokaw John Frankenheimer Edgar J. Scherick Howard Dratch

Camera Operator Camera Operator

Bruce Alan Greene

Production Design Production Design

Waldemar Kalinowski

Art Direction Art Direction

Scott Meehan Jan O'Connell

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Richard F. Mays Florence Fellman William S. Maxwell III Antoinette J. Gordon Samuel J. Tell Adam Austin David Agajanian Jeff Hay Dutch Merrick Chris Peterson Jeannine Stevens Bret Ross Keith Sale

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Jonathan Rothbart Marc Sadeghi Robert W. Morgenroth Andrew Hardaway

Title Design Title Design

Kyle Cooper

Stunts Stunts

Bud Davis Lynn Salvatori Blaise Corrigan Joey Anaya Mimi Lesseos Rick Kain Jacob Chambers Lee Waddell

Composer Composer

Sound sound.

Thomas Vicari Kevin E. Carpenter Steve Pederson Mike Le Mare Gary Ritchie Kathy McCart Charles M. Wilborn Matthias Schmitz

Makeup Makeup

Gretchen Davis Kris Evans Dennis Liddiard Michael Germain Mark Landon Kimberly Felix Jane Aull Tena Austin Cindy Gardner Timothy A. Miguel

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Toni-Ann Walker Elaina P. Schulman Joy Zapata Georgina Williams Lumas Hamilton Jr. Ora Green Stephen Robinette Patricia Budz Ellen Powell

Avenue Pictures Edgar J. Scherick Associates HBO

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

Czech English

Releases by Date

04 oct 2002, 28 oct 2003, 09 mar 2015, 28 jul 2003, 18 may 2002, releases by country.

  • Physical 12
  • Theatrical 13
  • Premiere Warsaw Film Festival

165 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Ziglet_mir

Review by Ziglet_mir ★★★ 3

PROJECT FRANKENHEIMER Nick's Review Max's Review

The final film of John Frankenheimer's career retreads the historical backdrop of his glory days behind the director's chair. The focus on LBJ is not really a coincidence as Frankenheimer was friends with the Kennedys and many other political personnel of the era, so to cover a sprawling lens on LBJ's perspective of Vietnam makes sense. Johnson's relationships with key Kennedy holdovers such as Bob McNamara are clearly important characters (and people) to Frankenheimer. They are handled eloquently amid one of the most tumultuous times in American history.

Per IMDb user erose001:

"The tragedy, if we look on LBJ as a tragic hero, is that there was no next election for him because of…

Burrows

Review by Burrows ★★★ 5

I really wanted to like this, and I did, I guess, to a point. However, PATH TO WAR is a long, political gabfest. I would suggest that John Frankenheimer's film is merely a word-fest spent going from committee meeting to committee meeting. As the Vietnam War unfolds--to the dismay of LBH who just wants it to go away--the film contentedly discusses public opinion, budget updates, and combating philosophies on international policy. However, I'm never sucked into LBJ's central journey.

Maybe I was too sleepy to watch film that was basically a three-hour class on 1960s American International policy, even though I'm pretty sure that I never did fall asleep. Donald Sutherland has never been nominated for an Oscar, but he's…

MushiMinion

Review by MushiMinion ★★★★ 4

Watched as part of PROJECT FRANKENHEIMER , along with Ziglet_mir and Nick Langdon . Check our their reviews as well!

The final film of John Frankenheimer returns him to familiar territory in the realm of political discourse. In his earlier dramas, Frankenheimer made his criticism of the American government well known, for the underhanded politicians in charge and our continued struggle to uphold the principals of life, liberty, and the pursuit for happiness to all of it's citizens. Coming back to this at the end of his career, towards the end of his life, allowed him to approach the question of why our political system continues to fail us with a great deal more sympathy than is found in his earlier films.…

Nick Langdon

Review by Nick Langdon ★★★★ 6

Part 25 of Frankenheimer Fest, a retrospective being undertaken by myself, Ziglet_Mir and MushiMinion .

John Frankenheimer's final film before his sudden death at the too-young age of just 72 represents a closing of the circle, in both form and content. As the whiz kid of live television directors he was an acclaimed master of the medium while still in his 20s, and after years struggling with his cinematic career re-found both popular success and critical respect in his final decade making prestige TV mini-series and movies. Politically and personally he was also very close to the Kennedys, with John F. Kennedy first offering him a job on his 1960 campaign, then as a fan of Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962)…

Daniel Bernard

Review by Daniel Bernard ★★★

For his final "tour of duty," John Frankenheimer really goes all the way with LBJ and delivers quite possibly the most engaging political TV Movie I've ever seen. Gets my vote further with the fact I put this on after midnight (and surprisingly with interruption,) but only got sleepy with this nearly 3-hour debate towards the very end.

Still, someone like Tommy Lee Jones probably should have played him though, instead of Brit Michael Gambon. All I could hear was Dumbledore, Bill Murray's associate in Life Aquatic, and the villain of The Insider, quite possibly my next viewing for Philip Baker Hall. Although I do need to honor James Caan more, as well as the now just sadly gone David Warner, Bob Rafelson, AND  Paul Sorvino!

BTW, yes this was viewed cause Phil appeared.

Patrick Grieve

Review by Patrick Grieve ★★★½

John Frankenheimer’s final film was this made-for-it’s-not-TV-it’s-HBO movie about an insecure President Lyndon B. Johnson destroying his own legacy (along with large parts of Indochina) by listening to all the “smart” Ivy League-educated advisors urging him to escalate in Vietnam.

Well-made and interesting, though the film ends up sidelining certain pivotal architects of the war (like McGeorge Bundy) so it can focus more on Robert McNamara (played very well by Alec Baldwin). I also expected to see a bit more of Bobby Kennedy, who was LBJ’s mortal enemy and Frankenheimer’s real-life friend (the Manchurian Candidate director actually drove RFK to the Ambassador Hotel the night he was murdered).

But I still liked this movie, which covers some fascinating moments, including…

Frances Meh

Review by Frances Meh ★★

If you’re unfamiliar with how the US walked backward into Vietnam this is a decent enough primer, but as a film...meh. Gambon’s great (the tapioca pudding scene alone), but Baldwin is fucking terrible in equal measure, and everyone else is a cartoon cutout.

Jesús Cortés

Review by Jesús Cortés

LA ESPIRAL DESCENDENTE

La última noticia que llegó al gran público de la carrera de John Frankenheimer fue el policiaco " Ronin " en 1998, quizá sobrevalorado por venir de quien venía y recordada luego por contener la última interpretación decente de Robert de Niro hasta la fecha.

La mayor parte del trabajo que hizo en ese decenio final de su vida y hasta su muerte en julio de 2002 fue para televisión y en ese medio se despidió del oficio con " Path to war ", estrenada en marzo.

Siempre interesado por la política, desde la lejana " The Manchurian candidate " cuarenta años antes, Frankenheimer , no sé cómo de consciente sería - el público desde luego, no - que iba a tener que esperar…

Ryan Bingham

Review by Ryan Bingham ★★★

As a history buff I probably enjoyed this film more than the average viewer. Sutherland and Gambon are particularly great. It is an interesting film, but it does run long, with some parts being extremely slow. Overall it is an interesting film for people who love history, Sutherland, or Gambon.

Fred Kolb

Review by Fred Kolb ★★★★½ 1

It's ironic that some of the best performances of American presidents have come from knighted British men, the very antithesis of everything that office is meant to represent. Both Sir Anthony Hopkins and Sir Daniel Day-Lewis delivered masterstrokes of acting in “Nixon” and “Lincoln” respectively, but it’s safe to add the late Sir Michael Gambon’s take on LBJ to the list as well. Johnson, who became president the day his predecessor was assassinated in Dallas, was an ambitious leader with quite a few accomplishments to his name that transcend the one he has become most notorious for: the escalation the war in Vietnam, an embarrassment to the United States government and military after they had to withdraw without anything to…

Chris McMurtry

Review by Chris McMurtry ★★★½

A beefy “men in rooms talking” flick, this is anchored by a stellar lead role performance by Michael Gannon as LBJ. As far as TV movies go this is as deep a bench as you will see cast wise and though he doesn’t go out with a loud bang, it’s a decent final film to wrap up John Frankenheimer’s stellar career, coming out two months before he passed.

reallybeanie

Review by reallybeanie ★

i was BORED and i do not need any more movies about old white dudes yelling at each other

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Path to War Reviews

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President Lyndon B. Johnson (Michael Gambon) watches his plans for a "Great Society" deteriorate as the war in Vietnam escalates. Robert McNamara: Alec Baldwin. Clark Clifford: Donald Sutherland. Lady Bird: Felicity Huffman. George Ball: Bruce McGill. McGeorge Bundy: Cliff DeYoung. Dean Rusk: John Aylward. Dick Goodwin: James Frain. Bill Moyers: Chris Eigeman. Directed by John Frankenheimer.

Despite the distinguished cast's superb impersonations of Vietnam–era figures, this dour docudrama is undermined by a curiously remote quality. Campaigning on a peace platform, Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson (Michael Gambon), former-Vice President to the assassinated John Fitzgerald Kennedy, defeats Republican senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election and enjoys the fruits of victory at his inaugural ball on January 20, 1965. LBJ takes office with high hopes, promoting civil rights and the war on poverty. But an unresolved international issue is already distracting his attention from campaign promises: What will become the quagmire of Vietnam. Pentagon big shots rally around the cause of defeating Communism, and LBJ subscribes to their domino theory — once one regime falls to Communism, others will follow. Ignoring the advice of Under-Secretary of State George Ball (Bruce McGill), LBJ becomes hypnotized by his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin), and supports his rolling thunder policy. But McNamara's "unassailable" facts and figures don't matter in the face of the realities of guerilla warfare in a jungle landscape unfamiliar to American military forces. American air strikes are soon replaced by incursions by ground troops. On the domestic front, LBJ proves himself a master strategist, capable of keeping even Alabama gevernor George Wallace (Gary Sinise), a virulent segregationistin, line; but the escalating war abroad is constantly in the spotlight. Though McNamara was a tireless cheerleader for the escalation of hostilities in Southeast Asia, he begins harboring doubts as the Vietnam War bitterly divides the nation. LBJ's dreams of a Great Society crumble as American servicemen sacrifice their lives in the pursuit of an antiquated concept of American sovereignty. The War weakens LBJ's credibility during his term of office and ultimately cast a shadow over his legacy. Though director John Frankenheimer's storytelling skill is evident throughout, writer Daniel Giat's script gets lost in the details of maneuvering by LBJ's contentious advisors, and the result is more than a little grueling. The film's ambitions are admirable, but LBJ's emotional agonies are never as emotionally compelling as they ought to be and are overwhelmed by the follies of his administration.

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Path To War (HBO)

Period Pieces

Path to war (hbo).

: A powerful look inside Lyndon Johnson's White House in the dark years leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland.

Plans start at €7.99/month

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About this movie.

A powerful look inside Lyndon Johnson's White House in the dark years leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland.

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Starring: Michael Gambon , Donald Sutherland , Bruce McGill , James Frain , Felicity Huffman , Alec Baldwin

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Path To War (HBO)

Period Pieces

Path to war (hbo).

: A powerful look inside Lyndon Johnson's White House in the dark years leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland.

Plans start at $9.99/month.

Drama, Period Pieces, Biographical Dramas

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Rating information, about this movie.

A powerful look inside Lyndon Johnson's White House in the dark years leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland.

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Starring: Michael Gambon , Donald Sutherland , Bruce McGill , James Frain , Felicity Huffman , Alec Baldwin

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Lyndon Johnson: I shoulda cleaned house November '63, got rid of all of 'em, McNamara, Bundy, Connally, I knew those fuckin' Kennedy-lovers would be disloyal to me! All of 'em! Clark Clifford: They only advised you, Mr. President. You decided. Against all your natural instincts, against the whole of your life experience... you decided.

Path to War is a 2002 HBO television film and the last work of its director, John Frankenheimer . It stars Michael Gambon as President Lyndon Johnson , Alec Baldwin as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara , and Donald Sutherland as presidential advisor Clark Clifford, who succeeded McNamara as Secretary of Defense.

1965: Following the largest electoral landslide in U.S history, LBJ is confirmed as the President of the United States, and he has big plans for the country. "The Great Society". A chance to make the land that all Americans dream of. Healthcare, education, welfare and civil rights reforms. He and his cabinet intend to eliminate poverty and racial injustice. But the drums of war are beating in South-East Asia...

As The Vietnam War escalates far beyond the proposed estimates of his cabinet and generals, LBJ finds himself leading a country that is torn apart by the escalation of the war and the requirements needed to win.

The film dramatizes the tragedy of a President who went along with the plan and the best experts he had, for a war he really did not want, and was ultimately destroyed by it.

This Movie provides examples of:

  • The Chess Master : LBJ successfully plays his hands that he used to play when he was master of the Senate. A subplot focuses on his efforts to pass the Voting Rights Act and confronting George Wallace's treatment of Civil Rights activists in Alabama using the famous "Johnson Treatment." Unfortunately power slips away when he finds opposition to the Vietnam War increase.
  • Determinator : The Vietnamese. The Joint Chiefs keep advising LBJ to deploy more troops and to escalate the war further when they don't meet their initial objectives. However, the Generals underestimate the will of the Vietnamese resistance, who aren't swayed by large casualties. When the Viet Cong supply lines are destroyed, they're having anybody with a pulse trek across the mountains to provide weapons to their guerillas.
  • Foil : McNamara and Clifford serve this function for each other. McNamara starts out as a gung-ho advocate of military escalation only to find himself frustrated by America's inability to win the war and horrified over its human cost. Clifford, on the other hand, speaks out against the war when first brought into Johnson's inner circle but becomes more and more outspoken in his defense of Johnson's policy, to the point he replaced McNamara as Defense Secretary. In Clifford's case though, he never seems particularly convinced of the war's necessity but rather advocates the President's positions out of loyalty.
  • Honest Advisor : Clark Clifford is an old friend of Lyndon's and he brings him on board to help disseminate all the information that he is enveloped with regarding Vietnam.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold : LBJ is a crass, sensitive egomaniac who also genuinely wants to help improve the United States.
  • Lonely at the Top : LBJ. By 1967 most of His reforms will never see the light the day. He sits alone in the Oval office in the dark. Only the sound of thousands of angry protesters outside.
  • Only Sane Man : George Ball, Undersecretary of State who attempts to draw the president's attention to the failure of the French in holding Vietnam.
  • Sadistic Choice : The refusal of the Vietnamese to surrender and the ineffectiveness of the US military's surgical strikes leaves LBJ with the unenviable choice of either escalating to the point where the Americans will be genociding most of the country to terrorize the surviving Vietnamese into submission (which would make his administration completely illegitimate in the eyes of the American public to the point where a mob might lynch their President, lose them the support of their strategic allies and likely provoke China and Russia into World War III ) or to retreat and let the North Vietnamese take over.
  • What the Hell, Hero? : Ball feels ultimately betrayed when Clifford switches to supporting the war.
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Path to War

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Currently you are able to watch "Path to War" streaming on Max, Max Amazon Channel. It is also possible to buy "Path to War" on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube as download or rent it on Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Apple TV online.

Where does Path to War rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

Streaming charts last updated: 1:16:25 PM, 05/22/2024

Path to War is 15872 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 11555 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than An Action Hero but less popular than Hanging Up.

A powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider's look at the way the USA goes to war—as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during the Vietnam War.

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Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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Dune: All of Paul Atreides’ Dreams, Explained

Paul Atreides’ dreams are a major driving force in the unraveling of Dune's narrative, often foretelling important events before they happen.

  • Paul Atreides' prophetic dreams foretell major events in the Dune franchise.
  • Paul Atreides struggles to accept his destiny as Kwisatz Haderach, as his dreams seemingly lead him down a path of war.
  • Despite seeing Chani's tragic death in his dreams, Paul must face the future head-on by embracing his transformation and the harsh realities of war.

The latest Dune movies are built around dreams. The first installment has plotted carefully to tease viewers with Paul Atreides' prophetic visions, and the latest Dune: Part II is no different. Revolving around Paul Maud'Dib's rise to power, Dune introduces an almost mystical figure with certain superpowers.

With religion playing a huge part in the film, dreams and visions become something that can't be ignored. In fact, Paul Atreides' dreams hold great importance in the unraveling of events. In the Dune universe, all visions are interconnected, building up the hype for the next significant event in Paul Maud'Dib's journey to rule the galaxy.

Paul Atreides Sees the Path to War During the Reverend Mother’s Test

Max's dune: prophecy series gets first trailer.

Paul Atreides's terrible purpose has already been hinted in Dune . During the Reverend Mother's test, Paul saw fire burning and people being burned into ashes while he was in extreme pain. "He goes into the fire," the Reverend Mother told Lady Jessica after Paul's test of her observance of him during pain. The dream represented Paul's rage and his dark side.

Paul again saw blood and fire during his combat with Jamis, which ended with Paul taking Jamis' life unwillingly, since it was the only way to secure their passage to the Fremen tribe. The Emperor had waged a war against House Atreides and the desert was the only way Paul saw moving forward. He had to shed his mercy for life.

Interestingly, at the beginning of Dune: Part II , viewers are shown the burning of body piles consisting of Atreides men. Paul admitted to his mother that he wanted revenge for what the Emperor had done to his House, even though his father would never support revenge. In Dune: Part II , Paul Atreides fired an atomic weapon into the mountains to allow sand worms to travel during the Arrakeen attack, which resulted in an explosion and fire. It's likely that more fire and blood will be seen in Dune: Messiah as Paul led the Fremen into the Holy War against the Great Houses.

Paul Has Predicted Most Events in Dune

Dune: part two editor teases paul atreides' character shift in messiah.

In a brief conversation with Jason Idaho's Duncan Idaho prior to House Atreides' official arrival in Arrakis, Paul confided in Duncan that he had seen him with the Fremen in a dream. He voiced his concern about seeing Duncan die in battle. "It felt like if I had been there, you'd be alive," said Paul. Duncan was sent as an ambassador to make an alliance with the Fremen, confirming that the Fremen part of his dream was true. However, he didn't believe in the prophetic nature of Paul's dream. Later in Dune , Duncan died protecting Paul, sacrificing himself to buy more time for the remaining Atreides.

Not only did Paul have reoccurring dreams about Chani, but he also saw the crysknife Chani would gift him upon their meeting , the same knife he used to kill Feyd-Rathaus near the end of Dune: Part II . Paul began having visions of falling in love with Chani even before they arrived at Arrakis. He also saw his mother becoming the Reverend Mother and giving birth to his sister, who had identical blue eyes just like the Fremen.

Dune: Part II ends with a fight between Paul and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen , but Paul had foreseen the way it'd go down in the first installment. He saw that he would be stabbed during the fight. He thought it'd be the end of him, but it wouldn't be. He knew that a crysknife was the key to winning the fight before Chani gifted to him. In the fight with Feyd-Rautha, Paul took a hit while stabbing his opponent with a crysknife, walking away from the combat as a mere winner.

Paul Atreides' Jamis Vision Showed Him the Way of the Desert

Dune: part ii  — the duke's ring, explained.

While lost in the desert with his mother, Lady Jessica, Paul had a vision of becoming friends with the Fremen. Among them, there was one named Jamis, who would teach him the way of the desert. Shortly, after nearing being devoured by a sand worm, Paul and Jessica stumbled upon Stilgar, Jamis and the tribe. That was also where Paul met Chani.

Though Stilgar had spoken, Jamis wouldn't allow Paul and his mother to travel along with the tribe and demanded combat. Paul killed Jamis, trading his place in the tribe and began traveling with the Fremen. The fight displayed Paul's strength as a fighter and earned him respect from others. However, Jamis reappeared in Paul's dream in the second installment in the franchise , serving as a mentor figure and someone of wisdom. "A good hunter always climbs the highest dune before his hunt," Jamis told Paul in his dream. "He needs to see as far as he can see. You need to see." Though Jamis couldn't be there to teach Paul the same way Stilgar did, he was the one to show Paul the true way of the desert.

Paul Atreides Knew He Must "Die"

Anya taylor-joy recalls begging director denis villeneuve for dune 2 cameo.

Upon entering the desert, Paul received a clear message that in order to rise as Kwisatz Haderach, Paul Atreides must die . He must kill his younger self and shed the skin of a boy to become what he needs to be. Despite what he knew, Paul spent most of Dune: Part II battling with who he thought he was and who he was supposed to be. He felt reluctant to listen to his mother and follow her guidance, fearing the consequences of war. Disrupted by fear and paralyzed by his dreams and visions, Paul struggled to see a clear way forward.

The vision was repeated in Dune: Part II and became more specific — he was instructed to drink the Water of Life by an ancient inner voice. Paul took the Water of Life and was technically dead for a little while before Chani brought him back to life. While his transformation to Kwisatz Haderach involved literal death, it also symbolized his mental transformation from a boy to a man who's ruthless and cruel enough to stomach the worst that comes with war.

Paul Dreamed of the Holy War in Dune: Part II

Denis villeneuve hints at key character returning for dune: messiah.

While training to walk in the desert and ride a sand worm, Paul started to have repeated nightmares about what was yet to unfold. He received visions that going South would trigger a Holy War, where millions would starve to death — he saw how it'd happen, and what would happen. In the dream, he followed a woman's footsteps to the South. The woman was his mother, the Bene Gesserit, the Reverend Mother, who had been encouraging him to embrace the path of the Kwisatz Haderach all along. Paul had problems embracing his Bene Gesserit heritage due to the conflict between the late Leto Atreides' teaching and the shadow play the Bene Gesserit was known for. His father's teaching about the Fremen's desert power also played a more prominent role in shaping Paul's perception of the world.

Almost immediately after having the nightmares, Lady Jessica became convinced that going South would grant Paul the most protection — he'd be supported as the Lisan al-Gaib, the One who would lead the Fremen to paradise by the fundamentalists. "There are millions of fundamentalists there," Jessica's vision said. "They will protect him when he comes. The Kwisatz Haderach will be born in the South."

However, in Paul's eyes, Jessica had been spreading fake prophecies among the Fremen as a way of control. Not seeing the necessity of religious protection and the power of faith, Paul, on the other hand, has been adhering to Leto's way of ruling in order to win over the Fremen — to lead with love, not fear. He understood the importance of forming an alliance with the Fremen , and due to the limited resources and brutal environment in the desert, they only knew fear. By giving them hope, even though a fake one, Paul would have control over the Fremen.

"If I go South, all my visions lead to horror. Billions of corpses scattered across the galaxy. All dying because of me."

- Paul Atreides in Dune: Part II

Aside from the horror of the Holy War, Paul's dream about Chani's death is another major vision in Dune: Part II . In his dream, Chani was standing at the top of the mountain. Upon approaching, she died in his arms with her face burned by what seemed to be some sort of atomic weapon or exposure to chemicals. Though Paul woke up and found Chani alive and well, the dream served as a warning. Paul later had the same dream immediately after his vision of seeing billions of corpses starving to death — he knew that he would lose her in the Holy War, which became one of the strongest reasons why Paul resisted the idea of going South. However, to bring the Fremen to safety, Paul had no choice but to go South. In order to gain clarity, he had to face death by drinking the Water of Life. By taking the necessary step, Paul was able to meet his sister from a distant future, who revealed Jessica's true identity as Baron Harkonnen's daughter to Paul.

Dune: Part Two

Paul Atreides unites with Chani and the Fremen while seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.

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  1. Path to War

    Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 09/25/23 Full Review Jan K The Path to War is a story that is well-known, often told from various angles - though rarely from the perspective of ...

  2. HBO's Powerful 'Path to War': The Drama That Was LBJ

    The movie is so powerful and passionate in its portrayal, and actor Michael Gambon so commanding in the role of LBJ, that "Path to War" could play a major role in the reevaluation of this widely ...

  3. Path to War

    Path to War at Box Office Mojo; Path to War at Rotten Tomatoes; Reviews. TELEVISION/RADIO; A Vietnam War Film Takes On a Sudden Resonance by Bernard Weinraub, 9 December 2002, The New York Times. LBJ's tortured 'Path to War' / HBO movie shows two sides of Johnson in Vietnam era, by Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, 18 May 2002 ...

  4. Path to War (TV Movie 2002)

    Path to War: Directed by John Frankenheimer. With Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, Bruce McGill. In the mid 1960s, President Lyndon B. Johnson (Sir Michael Gambon) and his foreign-policy team debate the decision to withdraw from or escalate the war in Vietnam.

  5. Path to War

    Path to War resembles other (relatively) recent filmed histories: HBO's own exploration of Churchill's wilderness years during the 1930s, The Gathering Storm, for example, or Oliver Stone's ...

  6. Path to War (TV Movie 2002)

    President Johnson (Michael Gambon)painfully watches his plans for a "Great Society" crumble as the war in Viet Nam escalates. Most impressive is Alec Baldwin as Robert McNamara. Equally strong is Donald Southerland playing Clark Clifford. Also of note are:Bruce McGill, Tom Skerritt and Philip Baker Hall.

  7. PATH TO WAR

    PATH TO WAR (TV MOVIE) "The well-produced political drama plays like the TV movie it is.". Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz. It brings back bad memories of the architects of the Vietnam War and their hubris in making bad decisions that led to an unnecessary and costly war in Asia that divided the country. LBJ was arguably our worst modern-day ...

  8. Path to War (2002)

    Film Movie Reviews Path to War — 2002. Path to War. 2002. 2h 45m. Not Rated. Biography/Drama/War ...

  9. Path to War

    HBO's "Path to War" is a fascinating, superbly acted expose of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Directed by John Frankenheimer and written by first-timer Daniel Giat, pic is sure to draw parallels to ...

  10. LBJ's tortured 'Path to War' / HBO movie shows two sides of ...

    PATH TO WAR: Drama. Starring Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, Bruce McGill, Dick Goodwin, Felicity Huffman, Philip Baker Hall. Directed by John Frankenheimer. (165 minutes. HBO. 8 ...

  11. Path to War (2002)

    Path to War (2002) By Christian Sauvé 2019-10-14 2023-03-19 Movie Review (On Cable TV, October 2019) John Frankenheimer remains a major director even fifteen years after his death, and Path to War is noteworthy for being his last movie, a made-for-HBO production that nonetheless shows his consummate skills in putting together an interesting film.

  12. Path to War (TV Movie 2002)

    Summaries. In the mid 1960s, President Lyndon B. Johnson (Sir Michael Gambon) and his foreign-policy team debate the decision to withdraw from or escalate the war in Vietnam. A portrayal of the Lyndon B. Johnson (Sir Michael Gambon) Presidency and its spiralling descent into the Vietnam War.

  13. Path to War

    Path to War. TV-14 | biographical dramas | 2 HR 44 MIN | 2002. WATCH NOW. A powerful look inside Lyndon Johnson's White House in the dark years leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland. Watch Path to War online at HBO.com. Stream on any device any time. Explore cast information, synopsis and more.

  14. ‎Path to War (2002) directed by John Frankenheimer • Reviews, film

    Watched as part of PROJECT FRANKENHEIMER, along with Ziglet_mir and Nick Langdon. Check our their reviews as well! The final film of John Frankenheimer returns him to familiar territory in the realm of political discourse. In his earlier dramas, Frankenheimer made his criticism of the American government well known, for the underhanded ...

  15. Watch Path to War (HBO)

    Watch Path to War (HBO) From director John Frankenheimer ('The Manchurian Candidate') comes this powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider's look at the way our country goes to war--as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon stars as the former president.

  16. Path to War

    On the domestic front, LBJ proves himself a master strategist, capable of keeping even Alabama gevernor George Wallace (Gary Sinise), a virulent segregationistin, line; but the escalating war ...

  17. Watch Path to War (HBO)

    Watch Path to War (HBO) From director John Frankenheimer ('The Manchurian Candidate') comes this powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider's look at the way our country goes to war--as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon stars as the former president.

  18. Watch Path to War Streaming Online

    Path to War. John Frankenheimer's powerful look at how President Lyndon Johnson became the symbol for the most unpopular war in U.S. history. more. Starring: Michael GambonDonald SutherlandAlec Baldwin. Director: John Frankenheimer. Add Max to any Hulu plan for an additional $15.99/month.

  19. Watch Path To War (HBO)

    Watch Path To War (HBO) and more new movie premieres on Max. Plans start at $9.99/month. A powerful look inside Lyndon Johnson's White House in the dark years leading up to and during Vietnam. Michael Gambon, Donald Sutherland.

  20. Path to War (Film)

    Path to War is a 2002 HBO television film and the last work of its director, John Frankenheimer.It stars Michael Gambon as President Lyndon Johnson, Alec Baldwin as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and Donald Sutherland as presidential advisor Clark Clifford, who succeeded McNamara as Secretary of Defense.. 1965: Following the largest electoral landslide in U.S history, LBJ is confirmed ...

  21. Path to War Movie Reviews

    Buy movie tickets in advance, find movie times, watch trailers, read movie reviews, and more at Fandango. ... Path to War Critic Reviews and Ratings Powered by Rotten Tomatoes Rate Movie. Close Audience Score. The percentage of users who made a verified movie ticket purchase and rated this 3.5 stars or higher. ... Civil War (2024) Monkey Man ...

  22. Path to War streaming: where to watch movie online?

    Show all movies in the JustWatch Streaming Charts. Streaming charts last updated: 5:14:50 AM, 05/14/2024 . Path to War is 16301 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 12136 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than The Phantom Broadcast but less popular than Flagged.

  23. Dune: All of Paul Atreides' Dreams, Explained

    The latest Dune movies are built around dreams. The first installment has plotted carefully to tease viewers with Paul Atreides' prophetic visions, and the latest Dune: Part II is no different. Revolving around Paul Maud'Dib's rise to power, Dune introduces an almost mystical figure with certain superpowers. With religion playing a huge part in the film, dreams and visions become something ...

  24. The Full House (2024)

    The Full House: Directed by Paul J. Lane. With Ian Burfield, Paul J. Lane, Tony Fadil, Dany Emozione. Jacob Shaw, an ex-war photographer, suppresses his gruesome plan for revenge on a London gang. But meeting April Harley, a war fanatic, sets him down a bloody, vengeful path.