McCullin
It’s taken me a while to get round to posting this since seeing the film McCullin at the ICA as I feel it’s taken some time to digest. The film is based around an interview with the photographer Don McCullin and interspersed with his images from various conflict zones from around the world as well as the occasional video footage. His editor at The Times also comments on a great deal of his work. It’s by no means an easy film to watch but the power and shocking nature of the imagery as well as his descriptions needs to be seen.
I love photography, I love being in my darkroom, but even my darkroom is a haunted place.
His piercing eyes never waver throughout the film and there’s a level of intensity within him that is hard to describe. He often questions himself and his role in the events that took place as well as discussing the “sheer madness of it all”. The horrific suffering is hard to watch without flinching in places.
The toll which it has taken on him as an individual is clear to see and this quote seems to sum up his issues with his chosen career.
I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don’t practice religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: “I didn’t kill that man on that photograph, I didn’t starve that child.” That’s why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace.
The trailer is below and also Mark Kermode’s review which is far more eloquent than my description. I’d highly recommend watching it or buying the DVD.