“Too many cameras and not enough food, this is what we’ve seen.”
That line from the Police song “Driven to Tears” sums it up nicely.
This film is about photojournalist James Nachtwey and his work in the world’s hotspots from Nicaragua in the 1980s to Rwanda and Kosovo in the 1990s to South Africa, Ramallah, and Indonesia.
It is interesting because Nachtwey comes across as the total opposite of the hardened war photographer one might come to expect. He is taciturn and moves quietly among his subjects, almost as if he isn’t there.
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In the interviews with him, he states that he wants to win over the people he photographs by treating them with dignity and respect. Again, the stereotypical photojournalist would warm up to people only to abandon them once he gets the photos he needs to fill his portfolio.
Two examples of how Nachtwey is different are shown in this film. One, he stresses that photos he took of starving people in Africa were taken at feeding stations – he did not find and abandon starving people in his travels. Two, a cameraman recounts how Nachtwey followed a mob intent on killing a man they were chasing and three times pleaded with them to spare the man. The man was summarily executed but Nachtwey tried to intervene.
Nachtwey’s work straddles the end of the cold war. As one of his German editors put it, the clashes during the cold war were between nations and between peoples after it.
So Nachtwey has never made a Faustian bargain, has never sold his soul for the killer shot.
Nachtwey says he wants people to see the horrors of war and be galvanized to end it. His passion is quiet and determined.
His treatment of the desperately poor in Indonesia is powerful and commendable.
This documentary goes a long way to showing the viewer the true human cost of war.
War Photographer is available to rent.
Murphy can be reached at: [email protected]
