Post by klep on Nov 19, 2018 7:42:33 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/19: Cameraperson
FACT OR FICTION WEEK!
Kirsten Johnson has spent her life behind the camera, capturing footage for various documentaries over the course of her career. Over that time, she's been witness to both a lot of beauty and a lot of ugliness. In Cameraperson, she tries to make sense of what she has seen by editing the footage she's captured into a coherent statement.
At first Johnson seems to be showing us footage more or less at random. We see a house and some sheep in Bosnia, a storm in Missouri, a boxer in Brooklyn, a midwife in Nigeria. But she then shows us a brief clip with philosopher Jacques Derrida, who tells us "She sees everything around me, but she's totally blind." It's a thesis of sorts. We've watched everything Johnson has shown us to this point, but we haven't really seen it.
From that point on Johnson's selected shots seem to come with more purpose, revisiting and contextualizing much of what we've seen before. That boxer early in the film? He loses and rages around backstage until his mother talks him down. That midwife? She struggles to save a newborn in a hospital lacking oxygen. And that peaceful house right at the start? That was a rape and enslavement center during the Bosnian War.
Johnson's resumé is full of documentaries on harrowing or upsetting subject matter, but it's clear that she is transfixed by the juxtaposition of beauty in the world with the horrors man commits in it. Spliced in with all of the bad is shots of beauty, of serenity both natural and manmade. What does it mean that these things exist side by side in the world?
An interview with two war crimes investigators involved with the Bosnia film suggest that hearing the tales of these tragedies has left a deep imprint on the woman behind the camera - unable to look away, but Johnson makes things even more personal by bringing in her mother. We first see her wander through the frame unwittingly, soon learning she has Alzheimer's. Johnson graces us with some intimate home video of her mother's failing memory before ultimately revealing her death - leaving Johnson's kids without a grandma. But in one memorable match cut she switches between a shot of her mom her mom and the matriarch of a family in Bosnia she spent time with while filming for a documentary about violence against women during the war.
There must have been something in that stylish old woman that reminded Johnson of her mom, and it's definitely true that she found some solace on that farm. It seems important to Johnson that we understand that - she takes us back with her to a reunion on that farm so she can thank them. And perhaps that's the lesson she learned. There's good and there's bad, and they can be side by side, and you just have to appreciate the good where you can find it.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/26: Dog Day Afternoon
HEIST WEEK!
Join us next week as we watch a film about a heist gone bad. Judging by the IMDB blurb , Dog Day Afternoon is a prescient statement about the horrors of American health care and the irresponsibility of the news media, so this should be interesting. Dog Day Afternoon is available for rent on Amazon Video, where it is free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 11/20: Shirkers
This podcast pairing about lost films concludes this week with Shirkers, a film about the making of a film that we'll never get to see. Join us for our discussion on Wednesday of this film, available on Netflix.
FACT OR FICTION WEEK!
Kirsten Johnson has spent her life behind the camera, capturing footage for various documentaries over the course of her career. Over that time, she's been witness to both a lot of beauty and a lot of ugliness. In Cameraperson, she tries to make sense of what she has seen by editing the footage she's captured into a coherent statement.
At first Johnson seems to be showing us footage more or less at random. We see a house and some sheep in Bosnia, a storm in Missouri, a boxer in Brooklyn, a midwife in Nigeria. But she then shows us a brief clip with philosopher Jacques Derrida, who tells us "She sees everything around me, but she's totally blind." It's a thesis of sorts. We've watched everything Johnson has shown us to this point, but we haven't really seen it.
From that point on Johnson's selected shots seem to come with more purpose, revisiting and contextualizing much of what we've seen before. That boxer early in the film? He loses and rages around backstage until his mother talks him down. That midwife? She struggles to save a newborn in a hospital lacking oxygen. And that peaceful house right at the start? That was a rape and enslavement center during the Bosnian War.
Johnson's resumé is full of documentaries on harrowing or upsetting subject matter, but it's clear that she is transfixed by the juxtaposition of beauty in the world with the horrors man commits in it. Spliced in with all of the bad is shots of beauty, of serenity both natural and manmade. What does it mean that these things exist side by side in the world?
An interview with two war crimes investigators involved with the Bosnia film suggest that hearing the tales of these tragedies has left a deep imprint on the woman behind the camera - unable to look away, but Johnson makes things even more personal by bringing in her mother. We first see her wander through the frame unwittingly, soon learning she has Alzheimer's. Johnson graces us with some intimate home video of her mother's failing memory before ultimately revealing her death - leaving Johnson's kids without a grandma. But in one memorable match cut she switches between a shot of her mom her mom and the matriarch of a family in Bosnia she spent time with while filming for a documentary about violence against women during the war.
There must have been something in that stylish old woman that reminded Johnson of her mom, and it's definitely true that she found some solace on that farm. It seems important to Johnson that we understand that - she takes us back with her to a reunion on that farm so she can thank them. And perhaps that's the lesson she learned. There's good and there's bad, and they can be side by side, and you just have to appreciate the good where you can find it.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/26: Dog Day Afternoon
HEIST WEEK!
Join us next week as we watch a film about a heist gone bad. Judging by the IMDB blurb , Dog Day Afternoon is a prescient statement about the horrors of American health care and the irresponsibility of the news media, so this should be interesting. Dog Day Afternoon is available for rent on Amazon Video, where it is free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 11/20: Shirkers
This podcast pairing about lost films concludes this week with Shirkers, a film about the making of a film that we'll never get to see. Join us for our discussion on Wednesday of this film, available on Netflix.