Event: War Photographer

On November 1, I attended the USC screening of War Photographer (2001) by Christian Frei. The event took place in the SCA building and was sponsored by the Consulate General of Switzerland in Los Angeles. Some representatives were at the event as was Christian Frei himself. The film was shown as part of a two-film event along with a Q&A with Frei in between the two pictures, War Photographer and Space Tourists (2009). Unfortunately, I was only able to stay long enough to watch the documentary War Photographer.

The premise of the documentary is simple enough. Frei follows the war photographer James Nachtwey, who is considered one of the world’s greatest war photographers, as he sets up an exhibit in New York with photographers from his travels around the world documenting war and poverty. To go along with shadowing Nachtwey, Frei interviewed others who worked in similar jobs or work along Nachtwey himself. An interesting part of the film was to see new correspondents, like Christiane Amanpour, who I have seen on CNN, talking about Nachtwey and his work. It helped connect the film to an American audience in a small way and it also showed another part to reporting disasters like war that we don’t always see during their news report. The film allowed the viewer to see the event just a little like these reporters and photographers see it. It reminded me of No Man’s Land, and how the media interacts and reports wars, especially when it touched how far a reporter would go to get their story and the question of when is something so horrible that maybe one should find a way to intervene and stop it. Is it really possible to take yourself out of the situation and just be an observer? Is that humane? That’s the dilemma that many of these reporters and photographers face.

The lasting impression I was left from this film was just a great admiration for Nachtwey to be able to continue his line of work. He sees so many terrible events but has such a devotion to document them to let the world know that he has sacrificed some relationships to pursue his dream. Nachtwey has to get very up and personal to the situation and the people to get the great pictures he gets to tell his story. All the horribleness he sees every time he goes on a shoot would mentally destroy a lesser person, yet it is so important to document for the world to see and realize what is going on in different parts of the globe.