TRAILERS
Watch: First Trailer for Kirsten Johnson's Powerful Doc 'Cameraperson'
by Alex Billington
August 22, 2016
Source: Vimeo
"A transcendent documentary experience…" Janus Films has debuted the official trailer for an outstanding documentary called Cameraperson, a very unique cinematic experience compiling the 25-year career of cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. Johnson has been working as a cinematographer for documentaries for a long time, working on projects including Citizenfour, Where to Invade Next, The Invisible War, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Fahrenheit 9/11 and many others. To make this film, she compiled various bits and pieces of footage from all of her projects and edited them together with a very vague narrative. I luckily had the chance to see this doc and it's incredible - a deeply visceral experience. I felt every emotion watching it, from happiness to fear to sadness to joy to disgust, and was amazed by the film she created. Don't miss this.
Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Kirsten Johnson's doc Cameraperson, direct from Vimeo:
A boxing match in Brooklyn. Postwar life in Bosnia. The daily routine of a Nigerian midwife. An intimate family moment at home. These scenes and others weave into Cameraperson a tapestry of footage from documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson's 25-year career. Johnson explores, through a series of episodic juxtapositions, the relationships between image-makers and their subjects, objectivity and intervention, and truth and storytelling. A hybrid work that combines documentary, autobiography, and ethical inquiry, Cameraperson is both a moving glimpse into one filmmaker's personal journey and a thoughtful examination of what it means to train a camera on the world. Directed by cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. This first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and also played at SXSW and Hot Docs. Janus Films will release this in select theaters starting September 9th. A must see if you love docs.
6 Comments
1
I don't know what to say. Less and less do I believe in a beautiful souls who represent the truth, whether it is ugly or not, of the world. Camera represents many different things, but I tend to believe that many feature films say much more realistic stories than documentaries about the real world. So, I'm not sure about this ...
shiboleth on Aug 22, 2016
3
What's more interesting, beyond any historical fact, is to see how far a human being can go in the dark side when his mind is prisoner of a perverted ideology. The psychological dimension behind the confrontation of the victim and the executioner who doesn't show any tiny bit of remorse is worth a watch.
tarek on Aug 22, 2016
4
I understand you Bo, But first of all, I somehow feel a need to apologize for overstretching some arguments and perspectives but I think that some of them deserve it. Anyway, I strongly believe that a lot of documentaries do fictionalize what the truth is. You say 'a recording device'. Everything is recording device, even pencil, right? But does anybody use it objectively. I doubt it and I also think that it is impossible to use it objectively. Documentary is supposed to show true side of what is recorded but it also can be fictionalized in its 'cinéma vérité' fashion. What I want to say, a camera is not neutral, objective device, it's pretty much subjective. And it also always adds something fictional just as much as feature films, but in other way. But I take it as its advantage since it takes a good cameraman to do good what one is doing.So, if I document filmically with camera something, I do it the best I can (if I want to do it good). But the fact is that I did it and that it is not an objective process. Not for me not for anybody else. However, it also might be the master piece but also a rubbish, nothing worthy of mention which is a signature of our subjective achievement. That's why I often tend to appreciate fictionalized films over documentaries since they are really telling us what they do, they add something to reality and they are honest about it. Believing that documentaries do it directly, without adding something new and fictional, is, on my account, an illusion... And apparently from quite different perspective, I totally agree with you about this trailer ... Cheers ...
shiboleth on Aug 23, 2016
5
You know, I am almost thinking of starting some philosophical discussion about what is being an object and what is being a subject. A recording device and a man behind it.But then again, I think it's a too big of maneuver for such a little difference in attitude. Since I think we understand each other on this. I like when you say: later gator ...
shiboleth on Aug 23, 2016
6
Well executed. I had no interest whatsoever and now I am interested. Good job.
DAVIDPD on Aug 22, 2016
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