The Hurt Locker
One is a film, which was lauded at the Oscars winning its director the highest fictional film accolade. The others are documentaries by film makers, two of whom are photojournalists.
Reality is, or has been a key feature of documentary film making. How do you capture unmediated that which would have happened without unintentional influence.
Yet our literacy towards reality plays out in a strong theme we've grown up on: Cinema. Ever seince DW Griffith fashioned an understanding of how to capture re-enacted scenes of war on camera.
No more. Yet watching these new doc-uramas I'm struck not just by the visceral hacceity of the films, but the thought of the mortality of the film makers. Given a canon 5d who, how many would dare to enter a conflict zone knowing this could be it?
It's an unspoken issue. But it's a real one. THese film makers do something admirable because they risk their own lives.
And there have been countless examples when things did not emerge as they would wish.
Many years ago, living in Ghana, a coup enveloped the country. Rawlings took power in a bloody over throw of the regime. I was there, remember it well as friends and I got caught up in the cross fire as cadets.
Years later it fuelled a desire to record conflict. In 1993 in South Africa I took a night drive - just one day only - into what was then the murder capital of the world. Many things happened, but the signing of a document absolving the Peace Corps of any responsibiliy, brought it home.
These film makers live through that thought for lengthy periods. Sobering thoughts.
Armadillo
The latest award winning film which shows the viscerality of war
Restrepo
Photojournnalist Tim Hetherington's award winning documentary
Hell and Back Again
Photojournalist Danfung Dennis' award winning documentary
In
