Errol Morris: "Believing Is Seeing"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-05/errol-morris-believing-seeing
Errol Morris is well-known for making documentary films. “The Thin Blue Line” is credited with helping overturn a murder conviction. And “The Fog of War” - an intense conversation with former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara interspersed with images of war - earned Morris an Oscar. His films challenge viewers to take a second look, a third - and more. Nothing is as it seems at first glance. Lately Morris has turned his attention to writing. In a new book, he explores his fascination - some might say obsession - with photographs. What they reveal and, just as often, what they conceal. Guest host Laura Knoy talks with the author and filmmaker about the mystery inherent in every photograph.
Guests
Errol Morris
Academy Award-winning director of "The Fog of War" and recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Award. His other films include "Standard Operating Procedure"; "Mr. Death"; "Fast,Cheap, and Out of Control"; "A Brief History of Time" and "The Thin Blue Line."
Program Highlights
Errol Morris' father died when he was not quite three years old. His only visual knowledge of his father came through photographs. Ever since, Morris has been, more or less, obsessed with the relationship between images and reality. His documentary films have won numerous awards including an Oscar for "The Fog of War."
Before Filmmaking, Detective Work
Morris: "My own believe is that detectives are born, not made. When I was working as a detective and an unemployed filmmaker, I had gotten some money from public broadcasting to start work on what became 'The Thin Blue Line,' a two- and-a-half-year investigation into a murder in Dallas, Texas. And I said well, thank God I don’t have to be a detective anymore. But of course, that was untrue. I continued doing what I was doing all along. There's an investigative element to all of my movies. What amazes me over the years is the overlap between being a detective, a investigator, a journalist, how they all somehow coalesce."
One Main Rule for Journalism
"It really doesn't depend on how you tell the story, it depends on your commitment to try and uncover the truth. That should be at the center of any journalistic enterprise. Am I sad that "The Thin Blue Line," which is probably the film that I'll be remembered for, was not nominated for an Oscar? You bet ya. But I've gotten over it and I did win an Oscar for another film."
The Power of Photographs
"Photographs connect us to reality, to the world. Part of that is my fascination with documentary filmmaking. It is trying to recover really what's out there, what's out there in the world. What's true, what's false, what exists, what is mere fantasy."
Asking Questions About Images
Morris explored some of the disturbing images that came from army personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and found that many of them were much more complex than they seemed at first glance. "We often read about war stories after the fact, about soldiers trapped in a situation where there is no moral clarity. We may like to think that there's always moral clarity. But trapped in a situation where seemingly there is a lack of any kind of moral clarity, then what do you do? What is right and wrong in that context?"
You can read the full transcript here.
Read an Excerpt
Excerpted from Errol Morris's "Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography." Copyright 2011 by Errol Morris. Excerpted here by kind permission of Penguin Press HC:
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Judge Grady's Verdict: Archetypal symbolism is an important tool for indoctrinating the population and manufacturing consent. Children are imprinted from birth by media and religious institutions to be deferential to the wealthy and powerful, quiessant and unquestioning. Most every game, show, movie and commercial contains a covert subtext. Errol Morris must be familiar with these things considering how stiills are presented and analyzed in his book. (All the scattered toys following bombings.)
Thanks DRShow for hosting our foremost documentarian. "Tabloid" is frivolous but excellent. Now go out there and clone some dogs!
Big fan of war documentaries. Fog of War is one of the best, music score by Phillip Glass makes it a true masterpiece, highly recommend. I think I will watch it again tonight.
Psychology
"The archetypes form a dynamic substratum common to all humanity, upon the foundation of which each individual builds his own experience of life, developing a unique array of psychological characteristics. Thus, while archetypes themselves may be conceived as a relative few innate nebulous forms, from these may arise innumerable images, symbols and patterns of behavior. While the emerging images and forms are apprehended consciously, the archetypes which inform them are elementary structures which are unconscious and impossible to apprehend. Being unconscious, the existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly by examining behavior, images, art, myths, and religions etc. They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world."-wikipedia Jungian Archetypes
Philosophy
"Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes, And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills, Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: — He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass. "-James Allen
Has Mr Morris read the book "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance" by Richard Powers? Powers writes a fictionalized story based on his response to a photo he saw in a museum exhibit.
A fascinating discussion today! As to the lazy eye, the author may be interested to know that the way we experience our environment early on in life during a critical period may shape the wiring of our brain persistently. The Nobel-laureates Torsten Wiesel, David Hubel and their colleagues extensively examined the fashion strabismus influences the nerve cell connections in the visual system. The principles they uncovered are still valid today and extend to other senses.
Read more about brain plasticity here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2011/01/brain-plasticity-mind.html
We are all differently wired. The diversity contributes profoundly to our fine-grained, rounded collective view of the world around us.
I was listening to the show as I was walking and photographing in my neighborhood woods.
As a nature photographer there is an controversy of moving a branch, leaf or whatever to get a "better" image vs untouched subject.
I think the goal is to capture a moment in time/ space and share it's beauty / truth. If I was sharing that moment with another person present we would change our point of view and selectively see the point of interest and our brains would screen out the unimportant / insignificant part of the object of interest.
So the photo can detract from, or emphasize the purpose of the image as does our visual/brain/intellectual attention / awareness.
I think the job of the photographer is to capture the essence with out the distractions but remain true to the subject.
I can be with a number of other people an capture images that others in the same space/ time don't see.
Briefly-
The manipulation of images has been the tool of propagandists and politicians and many others who want to influence attitudes and allegiances
Photos and video capture a very limited field of view and a very brief moment in time.
Reality has a very subjective and selective quality
Reality is in the eye of the beholder
Reality is influenced by the observer ( quantum physics)
and the always popular - What is reality?
and what of virtual images from the imaginary digital realm?
I like the saying I once saw - I'll see it when I believe it
and I believe it
Ace
Shared Visions Photography
Chapel Hill, NC
Thanks to Errol for his insight about stereo blindness and reality. I've always dwelt on my own stereo blindness in terms of how it affected my decision not to learn to drive and how that has shaped my life. I never gave much intense thought to how I ended up with my own quirky sense of the tenuousness of reality. I always thought the sixties were largely responsible.
Also, speaking as a writing instructor and part-time graduate student, I wonder if Errol is aware of the field of academic study referred to as "visual rhetoric, " which is very much in line with the topic of his new book. By the sound of it, I think he has just contributed to this academic project.
Looking forward to reading the book,
hj
We do not simply rely on the photographer's eye, but rather his/her perceptions of the reality seen, and the conscious and unconscious dedication to a truthful representation of that reality. If we can pose the photograph of the men raising the flag on Iwo Jima, for whatever purpose, I still believe that the photograph showed the larger truth. In that battle, men were wounded, men were killed, and the representation of our country's victory -- and theirs -- is still truth. As a trial lawyer, I am well aware that no two people "see" the same thing, nor can they understand in the same way, nor can they reconstruct or tell what they have seen. Photos, even posed, do far better. Great show!
Great observation -- clearly Ace has the eye and the mind which surely allow him to make pictures capable of transmitting what he "sees" to the rest of us.