More than a year ago my friend John Malsbary and I began trading emails about a couple of films and some ideas that they inspired. I suppose it is a follow-up to our first post together: Dvafoto Book Club, Vol 1: The Hurt Locker. This discussion started when he told me to watch Winter’s Bone and after I saw it I started drawing a lot of connections to my fascination with the documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. So I asked John to watch that documentary. This post is an edited form of the ongoing discussion John and I have been having, and jumps around quite a bit to other bits of art and society that we’re interested in. We hope you find it interesting. Watch the trailers for Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus and Winter’s Bone.

Matt Lutton:

I think the most important thing that sticks out to me personally with Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (directed by Andrew Douglas, 2003), in concert with Winter’s Bone (directed by Debra Granik, 2010) is the different approaches to telling stories that I’m interested in. I could see myself working on the stories at the heart of either movie, but I don’t know how I would do that with still images.
Watching Winter’s Bone, I kept thinking .. could I do something like this? Take a very realistic story and use some fiction to be able to communicate the story better? Would it allow me to give the audience more than they could see if I shot it ’straight’ as a documentary? For instance, some of the stories I’ve heard in the Roma camps (I spent much of 2009 photographing the destruction of a Belgrade Roma community), there is no way to show all of those elements in still images made at the moment. These were things that happened in the past, things happening where I can’t photograph, or mental images described to me. It seriously makes me think about doing some work on films some day, to explore that itch to tell a more complete story than “purely” what is in front of my lens. Or maybe there is indeed a way to do that within documentary photography.

It is the same thing with Wrong-Eyed, it makes me dream about making a documentary film. What they are able to pull out of the story, with some scripting, some crew, some lighting, is different than what I would get with my still photographs if I were standing there the day before or after with the exact same idea or perspective. Likewise, their way of telling a story would probably not work at all with the stories I have done. My stories exist because I’m one guy moving quickly with one small camera, really no equipment, and just shooting what happens in front of me, no set-ups at all. That movie can not exist without those setups. It took a crew of people to set up access and equipment, to get those people (in jail, in the bar, the preacher) to say their deepest thoughts in those particular tableus. We could both get in to these places, but our way of working changes what we will get on film. And making the decision about how you physically approach a story changes what you will record.

That’s the essence of what I’m interested in this conversation: the nature and method of story telling. And how choices about a medium, given their specific limitations and advantages, can reveal new elements of the story.

Since watching the film the first time I’ve read up quite a bit more on Wrong-Eyed and have fallen deeply in to Jim White’s music (see the embedded video below for one scene of White playing some music and telling a story while driving around). If you like his tunes and want to hear him talk about the making of the film there is a great live set and interview from KEXP in 2005. There is also a nice press kit with much info about the film, found on the website of the distributer.

The White interview on KEXP gave me some interesting perspective on what they set out to achieve. In response to one of the things you raised in your reading of the film, the whiteness of it all. They say that they chose to focus specifically on the rural southern poor white perspective. And for me, that is something that I haven’t seen much real documentary of. My experience with this population is mostly just jokes about rednecks and northern snootiness. Man, I want to just go drive around the south now. I don’t think I have the balls or emotional space at the moment to actually open myself up to these experiences and go to all of these places right away though. Something I’ve realized living and working abroad: it really can be easier photographing away home. Less personal baggage that you hear off the cuff. Not knowing the nuance at first (though I am obsessed with finding it over time, this is why I am five years in to my project with barely an end in sight). You can photograph and not feel so bad not knowing word for word the details of their life story.

John Malsbary:

I have no idea why you would be afraid of these places. You are straight, white and male. People would make fun of you for being northern/west coast, but that would just be their way of trying to know you. The struggle would be to put up with the hateful shit they’d say, and keep your cool, and not judge them or fight it. Or maybe you would feel you have to fight it.

You know, I think you’ve put yourself at such a disadvantage by talking to people in a foreign country. In America I sometimes feel like narratives are a dime a dozen. Part of my job, as I’ve told you before, is just being where people are aching to be heard.  My supervisors occasionally say that people with literally no money only have their story to trade.  No one wants a hand out from me.  So I receive stories like they’re legal tender.

For me it’s a pleasurable job. But I get a kick out of incoherent pandemonium. I think the hard part for a story teller would be sewing it all into something coherent.

Read on »

This is essentially a cross-post from my tumblr Only Unity, a side project where I play with b-side images from my Serbia project and muse about the music I’m often listening to.

A couple of months ago my friend Michael Bowring showed me the documentary film Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, where I was introduced to the wonderful musician Jim White. I’ve grown mildly obsessed with the film and the music it includes, and I’m sure to discuss it in-depth with an upcoming Dvafoto Book Club discussion that I’m working on with past contributor John Malsbary. For a taste, here is one of my favorite clips and favorite songs from the documentary where White introduces us to a small town in the American South and plays his song “Alabama Chrome”.

I want to treat you all to this tremendous twenty minute performance by Jim White on NPR Music’s series of “Tiny Desk Concerts”. It offers a beautiful introduction to White’s personality and his music, and he has a lot to say for life and creativity. NPR’s Bob Boilen introduces White with the note that he is truly a storyteller at heart. Maybe this is why I appreciate him so much. Here and in “Wrong-Eyed Jesus”, he sweeps me away and gives me chills with both his music and allegorical stories.

Jim White is a storyteller first and a musician second. It’s a kind of storytelling rooted in his own unusual history: He grew up in Florida in a deeply Pentecostal community and fell in love with the white gospel music he heard. But from there, White took a surprising path to becoming a full-time musician. He was a professional surfer, a boxer, a fashion model in Milan and a cab driver in New York City. White’s travels recently took him to Washington, D.C., where he stopped by the offices of NPR Music for this live performance. - NPR’s introduction to the performance

And if you want more, you really need to listen to this live performance and interview Jim White did at Seattle’s great independent radio station KEXP in 2005. He plays some amazing music and tells stories from the production of “Wrong-Eyed Jesus”. There are also free songs of White’s to download from the always-worthwhile Daytrotter Sessions website. I’m also happy to report that White just funded his latest album “Where It Hits You” via a Kickstarter campaign, which had I known about I would have contributed to (especially with the terrific rewards). Watch his presentation, it is the best kickstarter I’ve seen yet.

Also, I’m entirely aware that the ”Book Club’ has become more of a culture-media club, but I don’t care, I like the name. And I want this to feel a bit like a friendly discussion at the table over a bottle of rakija. So what do you think of Jim White, had you heard of him before? And have you seen the film?

Today we are introducing a new feature for our humble blog: The Dvafoto Book Club. I see it as a regular place for photographers, artists and other people we admire to share some of the art (literature, music, film, photography, painting, etc.) that inspires them or they want to talk about. I will be asking some of the interesting people I know to share in this space and hope that we can strike up a dialogue.

In this first installment I want to excerpt an email conversation I’ve been having recently with my good friend John Malsbary, who writes the excellent film blog Prison in Cinema. I watched The Hurt Locker with skepticism after reading some early reviews and seeing the trailer. I ended up really disliking the film on a number of levels. I mentioned this to John and he fought back with some pretty interesting points. Since the conversation veers into something of a discussion of cinema versus documentary, realism versus fiction and what we might gain from each, I thought it would be interesting for our audience. For starters, consider Michael Kamber’s review in the NYT Lens Blog, which criticizes Hurt Locker for dabbling in fantasy at the expense of the lived experience of deployed US troops. For example, “The movie’s denouement — the explosive ordnance disposal (E.O.D.) team responds to a massive truck bomb in the Green Zone — is so completely wrong in every respect that it borders on farce.”

John:
Realism in movies is something I’m interested in. I am a big fan of the Italian neo-realists and their offshoots. But they’re not the end all of cinema. In fact, they’re passé. I think most directors would be pretty unhappy to be labeled realists.

So let’s just think about Hurt Locker as naturalistic instead of realistic. It goes for the people and the sounds and smells and cats and buildings, but does not restrict its story to the actual.

Good fictional films do not concern themselves with the Sisyphean task of replicating truth. It’s impossible… obviously. And it usually backfires when academics have a more complete view of posterity. I’ve said before, or rather, I’ve aped Werner Herzog to you before. Art, especially film, can lead to an “ecstatic truth”. A more powerful truth than adherence to the actual would ever accomplish.

The Hurt Locker elicits a strong visceral connection. This is a tense movie. It is really hard not to take part very actively in the characters frightening experience. Strangely, the release comes during the super slow motion explosions.

The visceral connection is unique in the Hurt Locker. It escapes the John Wayne jingoism that haunts many war films. (I’ve been binging on Westerns lately, and have had plenty an opportunity to see film used to promote war.) Hurt Locker does not instill a nationalistic rah-rah-rah feeling. It announces quite frankly that Will James is a piece of shit. His comrades seriously consider blowing him up on purpose! I can only feel disgust when a superior officer congratulates Will’s cowboy attitude. At the same time, I am rooting for Will, and getting off on the rush of things. Instead of heroism, Hurt Locker invokes confusion.

James is a metaphor. He’s this detestable, unshakable need we have to keep on fighting. Not because we are helping anybody. Not because of some John Wayne sense of duty. Not because of camaraderie with our brothers in the shit. Simply because we, the American public, are addicted to the rush. Addicted to the television that fetishizes and glorifies the whole mess. I really like these quotes from Glenn Kenny: “First and foremost, Katherine Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is a movie about junkiedom.” and “… The Hurt Locker isn’t about the Iraq War per se, but rather about war as a condition.”

This film is so much more subversive than you’re giving it credit for. It starts out with an American in a space suit. Don’t you love that it Otherizes us from the very first scene? We’re the aliens.

I appreciate what you do, and what documentary filmmakers, and news creators do in general. I think it’s a hugely under exposed creative endeavor. It is not what fictional filmmakers do. When fictional filmmakers try to do what you do, they usually fuck it up (Take note Paul Greengrass). The Hurt Locker isn’t even trying to do what you’re talking about.

Matt:
If it is what you say it is, and I’m inclined to trust you but also not to agree, I can’t see how the majority of the movie going public understands or enjoys it for those reasons. Maybe I’m wrong, I hope so. But I still hear so many people talking about this film in terms of its accuracy in bringing home the war to the US, and they mean it literally. And we know this is not true.

I’ve said at points that the failures of realism in Hurt Locker are what screw this all up. Because this point undermines the rest of the puzzle and the message you’re describing to me. This is the same thing that happened with the film ‘Brothers’ (another recent American film about war and its effects on soldiers/families). On the whole there are too many schizophrenic characters and scenes that don’t add up. It isn’t a clear message. You can see the subtle and subversive treatment of issues in some moments very clearly but it is the widening gap between those moments and the cliché depictions of war and military that takes everything down for me, in both films. The melodrama and ludicrous scenarios get in the way. They kick me out of the story and out of any message.

I am not calling for utter realism, just something as realistic as serves the story and subject. It is not a documentary and doesn’t need to be. It is a drama about psychology of soldiers, inherently elusive and not tied to specific scenes or events that could be recreated. But you don’t need an action filled, melodramatic, farcical plot to achieve that. In fact, I’d imagine you’d want to avoid those things.

David Simon, creator of The Wire and Generation Kill, quoted Picasso in an interview (go to 2:55) and I think it is very relevant here: “Art is the lie that shows us the truth”

Fiction is absolutely a worthy choice in such a story, it does something beyond journalism and documentary, and I’ve always and will always believe this. But it has to be done right. All art is not the same, it can get in the way of the message. I’m saying Hurt Locker doesn’t get it right, even as fiction.

I’m left thinking about the scene in the desert where the EOD squad, on its own, stumbles upon an incompetent team of British mercenaries. Our squad saves the day, totally outside of the plotline as we had up to that moment expected. And totally unrealistically (they wouldn’t be there, they wouldn’t be alone, they wouldn’t know how to fight like that). What purpose does this scene have other than melodrama? One more instance of the hero saving the day against all odds? Another chance to get off on Americans winning the war?
I’m curious what you make of that scene and what I might have missed?

John:
I thought the desert shoot out scene was pretty satirical.

When I was sitting in the theater, and that came on, I was like “Really, a hokey bonding scene? That’s where you’re going with this, Ms. Bigelow?” As it dragged on, I was more like, “I’m thirsty”. Then they pulled out juice boxes, and I was cracking up. Here are these macho guys, in the desert bonding over their juicy juice like little boys in the cafeteria.

I wasn’t really worried about the British dudes. And I didn’t really think the Americans saved the day. I just saw the British guys as a foil for the Americans.

The Brits didn’t work together, couldn’t cooperate, and they got killed off. The Americans did work together, they found some redeeming leadership in their jerk-off leader, and it was this moment of unity. But the satirical juice boxes diluted what would have been a clichéd scene.

A lot of Westerns and WWII Band of Brother type movies would leave the cliché alone. More people would die, but it would all be for the heroic cause. Hurt Locker undermines the heroic Will James. His addiction results in his comrade being injured shortly before he would have left Iraq on leave. Anthony Mackie’s character ends up bitterly swearing at Will. The camaraderie is shredded. That could happen to John Wayne, but it would be couched as a joke. In Hurt Locker, it just feels shitty.

You bring up this point “We’re not talking about if they had the correct weapon but if there really is ever just one truck out in the world. Is it metaphor, that every truck of men feels like it is on its own?…”

To my mind the truck is a 2-D metaphor, and this is where the film sort of stumbles for me. The truck is in Iraq unilaterally, like America. And that’s all.

Straight through the entire movie, these guys are America, and America is addicted to war. America is acting heroic, but it’s America’s presence that is causing the violence. The whole time they’re trying to defuse these bombs with ever more quixotic absurdity.

It’s not a complex reading. I’d like to be swayed by people who think there’s a whole lot more going on, especially in regards to gender. Read some of these articles at Film Studies For Free about the thrill of transcendence in Bigelow’s earlier work. I refuse to accept that the creators of Hurt Locker are such jingoists that they would sign off on the film you’ve described. Katherine Bigelow is smart. Look at this article about her roots in the art scene. Look at this homage to the body of her work.

Matt:
This is a tormented Rambo, but the plot is Rambo all the same in the veneer of what war ‘actually looks like’. It doesn’t come across enough as fantasy or allegory. Maybe I’m being thick, but I don’t see how this film is undermining the institution of an action thriller or of war by using these motifs again. I think you need a different visual language to divorce yourself from all that baggage. For me, this is necessary, I can’t see myself getting beyond that, and maybe that is to my detriment as a viewer.

But here is the most interesting part of this to me right now: I’m also conflicted by the Michael Kamber’s account that all the soldiers dislike this film because it got so much wrong. There was a great piece in Harper’s from some years ago about war films and their use as motivational porn by troops called “Valkyries over Iraq: The trouble with war movies.” (behind a paywall, for better or worse). It leads from one of the scenes in the film Jarhead where US troops rallying before the first Gulf War watched the infamous Ride of the Valkyries scene from Apocalypse Now. It got them fired up, they got off on it. And I hear that people did the same during the latest invasion of Iraq. This can’t be the ‘meaning’ of the original scene can it? How do troops ignore the atrocities that take place in the scene?

The false heroism and “one against the world-ness” that you take as metaphor and critique of America’s position in modern war is too easily read at face value. I’m confused that is not being embraced by troops, not because they’re not capable of a nuanced reading of media but because it would seem to reinforce the actual mission they’re conducting. War in the Hurt Locker and the modern era often begins in the individual combatant’s head and is a reflection of their society’s condition. In that sense this film does a good job, but then why is it not being received well by the military itself? (if one can cull one opinion from a diverse group).

Very often films that are to many ‘anti war’ can be re-purposed as firestarters in a different context. If this film can’t be used that way, I guess it is doing something right?

(It is very likely that John and I will continue this in the comments below, and I encourage you to include your thoughts here or on our Facebook page. One of my goals with this Book Club is to get more discussion going of interesting and important things beyond photographs themselves, which we often have enough of. Lets talk about what else inspires and informs our work)