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War
Photographer
review by Gregory Avery, 2 November 2002
In the documentary War
Photographer, the American photo-journalist James Nachtwey, a
tall, serious-looking man, simply dressed and with short, greying
hair, is shown calmly and methodically assembling his still camera
equipment, and then going off to photograph people and events and in
places like Kosovo, during the discovery of a mass grave; a
confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians in Ramalla, during
which tear gas is thrown and bullets are exchanged inbetween
rock-throwing; African survivors of machete attacks, or people
starving during a man-made famine in Rwanda, the latter which
Nachtwey describes as something like "taking the express elevator to
hell."
In Jakarta, he meets and
photographs working-class people who are living next to railway
tracks -- right next to them, in the open and with trains zooming
by, because, with the amount of money they're making, it's less
expensive for them to live on this ground because they don't have to
pay rent. Wherever he goes, Nachtwey exchanges a gesture or a few
words of greeting with people before taking pictures. Ingeniously,
the documentary filmmakers have set up a "microcam" atop Nachtwey's
still camera, so that we can see the scene that he is photographing;
later, we see the images that he has recorded on film, unstinting
yet very expressive.
Nachtwey himself lives in an
apartment in New York City with a very good view, but it is sparsely
furnished and utilitarian. He seems to have very little life outside
of his work -- photography, and specifically war photography,
something which he says he consciously chose to pursue beginning in
the 1980s, takes up all of his time, as if it were a vocation, and
the more we watch him and listen to him, the more we come to believe
how entirely in earnest he is about what he does. And, gradually,
the documentary reveals the subject underneath the taciturn surface.
To do what he does means having to confront grief, horror,
bloodshed, but, as Nachtwey himself puts it, "For me to go to these
places and cave-in would be useless." If he did, of course, he
wouldn't be able to function in this capacity, but neither is he
cynical, callous, or glib about what he does, nor is he some cocky
sort who sticks a gun in his belt, heads into a war zone, and hopes
to find fame and glory in the attention. The film opens with a quote
from Robert Capa, who took a famous photograph of a young man at the
moment when he is shot to death during the Spanish Civil War; later,
Capa himself would, fatally, step on a landmine during the early
years of what would become the Vietnam War. An editor for the German
news magazine "Stern" ventures to the filmmakers that Nachtwey may
have come to believe that he is immune to the stray bullet, and
there are certainly easier ways to make a living, especially when
Nachtwey mentions the difficulty in placing photographs such as his
opposite upscale advertising in magazines or in a media culture
attuned more than ever towards escapism and entertainment. But
there's no denying that he's performing an important service in
documenting events and occurrences that otherwise wouldn't be seen
or known about yet deserve to be recorded no matter how unpleasant
they may be.
Is he making a living out of other
people's suffering? A good question, and one that the documentary
does not try to dodge. Not until the end do we learn that Nachtwey
diligently keeps himself in check on this -- that if he ever felt
that his work was beginning to keel in that direction, than he would
have "sold his soul," and in this way does his low-key manner, way
of living, and way of working all begin to make sense in your head.
Far from being unfeeling, Nachtwey maintains his compassion for the
people on the other side of his camera as a sort of covenant, so
that he can show us: This is what's happening. What can we do about
it? And it is only by way of other people whom the filmmakers talk
to that we learn of the injuries Nachtwey has sustained, the
instances of "physical trauma," or (as told by a seasoned cameraman
who works for Reuters) of the time when he got down on his knees
before an angry crowd to beg that they spare the life of a man whom
they were going to beat to death in the streets. Inspite of himself,
Nachtwey emerges in this film as a truly heroic figure. |
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