cameraperson (2016) & memory movies

     So, I do this thing when I travel with friends and family where I try to record short videos of tiny moments wherever we are. When I get home, I usually edit these clips into a short video, normally 30 seconds or so per day I was traveling. I call them ‘Memory Movies’ and just upload them to youtube for myself and friends to pull up anytime we feel nostalgic. This brings me to ‘Cameraperson’ the brilliant two-hour memory movie that chronicles Kirsten Johnson’s life. One of the things I’ve tried to implement into my short edits was connecting clips by themes that I come up with after in the editing bay, something that is the whole thesis behind Johnson organizing her clips from her career-length repertoire. For me, there are three moments where she allows the characters on screen to speak about the connection of the clips that are crucial to deciphering and feeling this film. 

    

The first is one of these clips that we highlighted in class, with the quick simultaneous cuts around a Syrian refugee speaking on glorifying violence and death while Kirsten places clips of these motifs around it. This is, what I believe, to be the most obvious call for analysis that Kirsten makes towards the audience and a point of reflection for herself. This relation by editing is something integral to film and something established all the way back in our discussion of ‘Man with a Movie Camera.’ 

The above point also serves as a larger motif for the point that I discussed in class relating to the ethics of her filmmaking. When highlighting a subject of a violent war who lost eyesight partially in one eye, he explains that one eye can see things as they naturally appear while the other sees shapes and outlines, but cannot define the whole picture through only this eye. I believe this serves as a gracious metaphor spanning the whole thing, both on a scale of how Kirsten is capturing stuff and the relation of stories throughout the picture. For instance, let’s talk about the integral shot of the baby suffering from lack of oxygen. Using the words of the young war scarred boy, which eye is Kirsten capturing this with? Is she capturing this in an ethically conscious way where we are seeing & feeling everything? Or are we looking at it in shapes and forms? Is there even a way to capture this real-life event so that everything is conveyed properly? Is there even a proper way to capture this? 

This technique is used on a larger scale when applying it to the murder of a man in Texas. We’re first introduced to this horrific crime and to me, it felt like a general crime documentary, something I’ve felt when we watched ‘The Thin Blue Line’ earlier this year, or myriads of others that my mum enjoys. We then later return to the court case, after the conversation with the boy, and the same subject matter is shown in a new light. One of respect, of geniality. This actually happened, people were hurt and affected in gruesome ways. Once again, I feel as if I watched the first segment only seeing the forms and shapes of the event, but now I truly see everything in colour and tones. Another point of analysis and reflection for both Johnson and the audience. 

Finally, another interview which ties the whole picture together is a short singular clip of a physics professor explaining quantum entanglement. One thing is intrinsically linked to another no matter how far apart you pull them. In other worlds, motifs are universal. This film deals with death in so many different locations and contexts yet they’re all linked. This is a film ripe for links. In class, another student linked the young boxer embracing his mum with clips of Kirsten’s relationship with her mum. I linked the boxer’s struggle to become number one with the poor baby’s struggle to just breathe and the link of just being torn away from her mother to try to stabilize her. 

That’s the beauty and genius of this film, where you can ask a myriad of people the narratives they drew between all the clips presented and they’d each be unique. Kirsten Johnson has provided us with a cork-board full of clips throughout her life and given us a spool of string and push pins and asked to connect them in the ways we see fit, rewarding those viewers who will happily go back again and again to bring new contexts and links into each clip