Niels-Ole Rasmussen: Jacob Holdt

Fotografen Jacob Holdt er tilbage i et fotografi han optog for fire årtier siden. Eller rettere han er tilbage det sted hvor han optog fotografiet. Det var et hus, hvor der boede en kvinde med sin lille søn. Nu er kvinden borte og alle spor efter hendes nænsomhed og omhu i hverdagene dengang. Sønnen er også væk, sporene som Holdt møder i huset er efter sønnens opløsning som menneske i en vanrøgt af barndomshjemmet som er en ruin omkring et mere end trist rod.

Jacob Holdt opsøger på den måde en suite scener fra sine optagelser dengang. De er bestemt ikke alle nedslående som denne, de fleste er opløftende fortsættelser af mødet for så længe siden, som var årene siden sidst ikke disse mange. Fotografiernes personer er der stadig i deres omgivelser og optagelserne kan fortsætte. På nogle måder som var intet hændt. Denne række møder er filmens vigtige story line. Det er den enkle arkitektur, jeg glæder mig til, når filmens instruktør Niels-Ole Rasmussen som det jeg hæfter mig ved i pressemeddelelsen fortæller denne hændelse fra den langvarige forberedelse: ”Jeg glemmer nemlig aldrig den dag, Jacob kom forbi med en uskyldigt udseende disc. Hvad er det, spurgte jeg? Det er billederne, svarede Jacob. Disc’en gemte 15.000 billeder, som vagabonden Jacob fotograferede i USA fra 1971-75. Kun et fåtal er siden blevet verdensberømte i Amerikanske Billeder.”

Niels-Ole Rasmussen er forfatter, erfaren journalist og flittig tv-tilrettelægger, og her denne dag havde han altså i hånden et arkiv med tusinder optagelser af en fotograf, som i sin tid blev banebrydende for en ny dokumentarisk linje i den fotografiske kunst. Det var en gave til hans nye værk, og det var en forpligtende opgave.

Titlen Jacob Holdt: Mit liv i billeder rejser spørgsmålet om det her er en nøgtern tv-biografi eller et lyrisk reflekterende filmessay? Og titlen rejser dernæst med sit kolon autorspørgsmålet, hvem har egentlig skrevet, instrueret, tilrettelagt? Hvad er det for et greb Niels-Ole Rasmussen har lagt ned over værket ved med et kolon at forvirre mig, så jeg bliver usikker på hvorfra historien fortælles? Og hvorfor skal jeg i netop dette allerførste øjeblik være usikker på, om filmen sådan rigtig er instruktørens værk. Er Jacob Holdt iagttaget, beskrevet, skildret af Niels-Ole Rasmussen eller er han ikke?

Jeg må nu jeg har set filmen svare både nej og ja. For store deles vedkommende er det den dokumentariske fotograf og opdagelsesrejsende Holdt som fortæller, men han har haft journalisten Rasmussen til at hjælpe sig, altså en specialist i tv-dokumentar, så forbillederne for deres filmværk hentes her, æstetikken hentes herfra. Og underholdningskravet herfra griber formende ind på grundmaterialet, på anvendelsen af de 15.000 dokumentariske fotografier fra 1971-75 på disc’en, som udveksledes den dag Niels-Ole Rasmussen aldrig glemmer.

Til dette materiale af international kunsthistorisk interesse lægges fra den tv-dokumentariske tradition rekonstruktionen, for eksempel en scene hvor Jacob Holdt skal demonstrere hvordan han arbejdede som prositueret i rige villaer i sydstaternes herregårdsstil som for mig at se ender i forlorne smil og dementerende fnis, og tv-reportagen, for eksempel et afsnit om den troværdighedshistorie som i forbindelse med en udstillling på Charlottenborg rejstes i Weekendavisagen som jeg oplever tabes på gulvet i ubeslutsomme billeder og i en dialog som forudsætter underforstået viden. Men, men, Niels-Ole Rasmussen og Jacob Holdt laver også tre store afsnit bygget af ægte filmscener som er hele filmen værd:

Jacob Holdt opsøger en kvinde fra fotografierne, en kvinde fra dengang, Marly Sockol, kæresten fra begyndelsen af 70’erne. De var sammen som forelskede aktive kommunister, og det var svært og farligt for følelserne. Men i mødet viser hun i en lang ofte munter samtale, med et blik som ikke sådan kan glemmes på 45 år afstand den unge kvinde som Jacob Holdt i den grad forståeligt måtte elske. Endnu til filmlitteraturen en skildring af forelskelsens væsen.

Og han opsøger en anden kæreste fra dengang, Merrilyn Jones hedder hun, og på fotografiet fra dengang sidder hum i badekarret; hun er ung og frigjort og modig. Det er et berømt fotografi tror jeg. Nu mere end fire årtier mødes de, han har kameraet fra dengang med, vil gentage opstillingen, overtaler hende flirtende og hun går med til det flirtende, mens de glade og oprømte diskuterer: var vi kærester, eller var vi ikke? Atter til filmlitteraturen en skildring af erotikkens væsen.

Og han opsøger klanlederen Robert Moore, sin gamle ven som var leder i Ku Klux Klan. Nu skal Robert Moore giftes og Jacob Holdt som er opdraget i en jysk præstegård står for den hellige handling. Bryllupstalen er helt sædvanlig, den slutter som den skal med Paulus’ ord om kærligheden, som aldrig ophører, og den er et ganske usædvanligt personligt vidnesbyrd om forståelse og accept af det frastødende hos andre og hos sig selv. Atter til filmlitteraturen en skildring af venskabets væsen.

Her i dette afsnit er Jacob Holdts tale så vigtig. Den er en af de tre taler som klipperen Mikkel Sangstad har anbragt som kloge markører i forløbet. Jacob Holdt samler således sine livsanskuelsesmæssige erfaringer og konklusioner i form af taler, et andet sted hos gamle venner i Skotland, venner af en helt anden slags, holder han en bordtale og endelig under et besøg helt alene ved faderens grav en tale til ham. Altså bryllupstale, tale ved bordet, tale ved graven.

Således fastlægger Sangstad i klippet fra begyndelsen af filmen en fasthed i afsnitinddeling og rytme, men det opgives desværre, han går efterhånden i fortællingen tilbage og samler op uden det forudsættes i rammen, som jeg først tror er den nutidige samtale med hustruen ved spisebordet, men det forbliver udefineret og udviskes så jeg efterhånden ikke ved hvor jeg er henne i et oplever jeg næsten tilfældigt reportagestof, men tænkt som informerende og underholdende nødvendighed.

Tv-dokumentaræstetik, ugebladsæstetik, folkelig æstetik. Problemet med den folkelige fortællemåde er at når den havner i en ikke folkelig fortællers virksomhed, så bliver den uvægerlig påtaget, beregnende og kommer til at tale nedad, og det skinner ubehageligt igennem visse af hvad jeg på den måde tror er Niels-Ole Rasmussens dispositioner, valg og fravalg, men det sker derimod aldrig for Jacob Holdt selv; han er i sin kunst den egentlige folkelige fortællings håndværker.

For mig samler deres film Jacob Holdt: Mit liv i billeder sig således i en kerne af autentisk dokumentarisk filmarbejde i blot tre gribende afsnit klippet af filmscener, tre samvær med kvinder, som blev forladt, men aldrig glemt og tre kloge moralske taler, en bryllupstale, en bordtale og en gravtale.

Niels-Ole Rasmussen: Jacob Holdt: Mit liv i billeder, Danmark 2016. Anmeldelse: 4/6 penne. Premiere med DOXBIO 5. oktober i mange biografer: http://www.doxbio.dk/movie-archive/jacob-holdt-mit-liv-i-billeder/

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/96882.aspx?id=96882

SYNOPSIS

Vagabond og fotograf Jacob Holdt tvinges til at opsøge sandheden om sin eventyrlige skæbne. Jacobs ekstreme ja-filosofi kastede ham i armene på sit livs store kærlighed, USA. Her vandrede den unge præstesøn – fra Ku Klux Klan og mordere til de sorte på bunden af den amerikanske drøm. Jacobs frygtløse tilgang til livet førte ham ud i kampen for at forvandle racismens had til kærlighed mellem mennesker. Men hvilke indre dæmoner drev vagabonden fra sted til sted?

Publikum er med, når Jacob konfronterer fortidens synder og rydder op. Det er pinligt, når længst glemte hemmeligheder afsløres; det er berusende, når gamle flammer pludselig selvantænder i glødende lidenskab; det er brutalt, når Døden høster i kærlighedens have; det er generøst, gavmildt og lattermildt. Kan livets lange tråde flettes som vagabondens eget skæg?

Denne roadmovie er en sanselig hyldest til Amerikanske Billeder, til rejsen, til eventyret, til visdommen og ikke mindst til kærligheden. Unge Jacob Holdt skulle være præst, men gjorde oprør. I begyndelsen af 70’erne flygtede han til USA. Som vagabond levede Jacob efter én regel: sig ja til alle mennesker. Oplevelserne blev til Amerikanske Billeder. Nu vender Jacob tilbage for at søge sandheden bag sin eventyrlige skæbne. (Line Bilenberg)

Nick Fraser to Documentary Streaming Platform

“How Docs Reach the Audience” was the headline of the conference I was involved in here in Saint Petersburg with presentations of several interesting streaming services for documentaries in the Nordic and Russian environment and with only one broadcaster involved, the 24DOC that also includes a vod offer to its viewers.

A clear statement of the fact that classical broadcasting is far from being the only way for documentaries to the audience.

And in comes today the news from realscreen (written by Kevin Ritchie) that legendary commissioning editor Nick Fraser from BBC’s Storyville leaves his job to “commission documentaries for subscription-based streaming service Yaddo, which he has co-founded with producer Lawrence Elman, who serves as CEO…”

“Yaddo is rolling out in Europe at the end of this month and will enter 160 territories, including the United States, in November.

It will initially be available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Subscriptions cost US$4.99 per month or €3.99 per month…”

“Being involved in Yaddo is an exciting opportunity to be at the heart of the future of documentaries and how they are created,” says Fraser.

Read the whole article, link below, exciting news, indeed, Fraser can count on a subscriber in Denmark.

http://realscreen.com

Erarta, Yuri Abramochkin, Salgado

My introduction to Russian documentary and to wonderful Saint Petersburg is very much due to Viktor Skubey and Ludmila Nazaruk. The latter (and her artist husband Ilya) has taken me year after year to Erarta, museum for contemporary art, brilliant collection, excellent exhibitions, super well conveyed, English and Russian texts all over.

This time three exhibitions caught our eyes: 1) Belarussian contemporary artists, strong in expression, about freedom and its absence, personal styles, extraordinary and sometimes scary interpretations of our lives. 2) Salgado’s Genesis was there, had seen it before, this photographer is a genius in framing and in his pointing to us, that we should take care of our world. His pinguins, his tortoise, his portrait of a Nenet, unique! 3) And the Yuri Abramochkin, born 1936, press photographer with access to Kreml and surroundings, portraits of Gagarin, of the central committee members waiting for Brezhnev, all with hats, of Kruschev with the shadow of Brezhnev catching up on him. But also documentary photos of people, regular citizens of the USSR… and a text from him, in many ways a true, respectful documentarian, read this:

”Press photographers differ from those working in the field of experimental photography, applied photography etc. in that the former shoot real people, their life… They walk through their lives with a camera. My credo is to gaze into the environment, to look around instead of peeking (there is something tactless about it) and catch unique moments in life, you sometimes see things that would never devise or invent yourself”.

Photo: Ludmila Nazaruk

http://www.erarta.com/en/museum/about/

M2M How to reach the Audience/ 4

And some words about the male interventions at the conference in Saint Petersburg on the second day, and some small conclusions or call it reflections.

Festival director (and film director and producer) Pavel Pechenkin from Flahertiana in Perm had just completed the 2016 edition of the old festival that carries the name of the man, who for many was the one who invented the name ”documentary” and who was also the one, who said that ”we have not achieved our goal before it is quite as easy to get access to a film as it is to a book”. Is that where we are today?

13000 visited the festival this year, Pechenkin said. His speech,

however, was more focused on the importance of involving teachers in documentaries. He mentioned that students are writing essays about documentaries they have seen, that school screenings are arranged in the cinema complex that he is responsible for, he has 6 halls. To the question if there is film education, meaning lessons on dramaturgy, how to analyse a film etc., on the curriculum of elementary schools or high schools, Pechenkin answered ”njet”. Pechenkin stressed the importance of showing film historically interesting documentaries in his cinema, where there are Film projectors in some halls, it is not all digitalized. Did you hear that Western cinema owners…

Alexey Nedviga from the Rodina cinema in the city represented the classical approach to Film, a film lover who would never think of watching a film on a computer or on a smart phone. He is programming documentaries in his cinema – come with your films to me, he said to the filmmakers present – and ”I don’t care if there are only 2 viewers in the cinema, maybe there will be 5 the next day…”

Contrary to him, very much contrary I would say, was Alexey Laifurov from the tv station 24Doc, a true film buff working for a commercial channel that shows documentaries in loops, normally with Russian dubbing – the exception, however, being the film of Laurie Anderson, because ”her voice is so important”… in the evening I saw Snowden in Laura Poitras film speaking Russian. Strange, but that’s how it is in many countries. Anyway, the channel, Laifurov said, has three legs: it’s a tv channel, it has a vod platform, it does theatrical distribution – works a lot with film festivals. Laifurov focused in his speech on what the channel does on art, planning a series/programmes on/with Louise Bourgeois and, if I got it right, Gerhard Richter. 9 million people can watch 24Doc, 55.000 followers on FB. The channel has recently done a relaunch omitting what Lairufov called ”politisized” documentaries, I think he meant films with a social and/or political angle. On the other hand he mentioned that ”Wolfpack” was shown. A social/psychological documentary? Website below.

The attendance to the conference was not big, so good that Viktor Skubey had organised that everything was filmed and put online in both an English and Russian version – the many interesting speeches deserve to be heard and seen by documentary people all over.

Reflections… the situation for documentaries in the Nordic countries and in Russia is totally different when it comes to reaching the audience. Having said so, Russia has a lot of festivals, there are film clubs and there are festivals that work all year round and have the ambition to make the triangle Film/Director/Spectator come into reality. Doker is the example, an independent grassroot festival set up and run by filmmakers, with a considerable audience. M2M here in Saint Petersburg has an audience, an international profile and there are many other. The basic question is of course how to get more of the 250 yearly supported to reach an audience, if the makers and producers want that. But, maybe very naïve, who should they not want their films to be watched?

And how can the many Nordic and European documentary initiatives give access to the Russian documentarians and documentaries. The latter is maybe not a problem, there are many excellent documentaries coming out of Russia, not only those which are in opposition to the system, ”the Putin films”… Russia is so full of stories, we want to know and understand, don’t we. At the recent Baltic Sea Forum one story after the other dealt with Russia of today and its past. But the training initiatives, the vod’s, the lounges etc. – are they also part of the sanctions ”we” Europeans perform right now? Cultural sanctions, does it make sense? Of course not!

www.24doc.ru

M2M How Docs Reach the Audience/ 3

No discussion, the female presenters at the Saint Petersburg conference on how to reach an audience saturday/sunday September 24/25 were the best prepared, spoke good English, were used to communicate and had clear power point figures and texts, mixed with film clips. And kept the time so the polite moderators, Cecilie Bolvinkel and me, did not have to interrupt or make signs that ”time is up” as we tried, totally in vain, to do with a couple of male speakers…

Bolvinkel talked on the first day about the EDN project ”Moving Docs”, a pan-European documentary screening network that includes 9 partners. It was launched in 2015 and includes screenings and now also – text taken from the website of EDN, link below – ”… In addition to raising awareness for the ongoing refugee crisis through documentaries such as ”The Longest Run” (director Marianna Economou) and ”At Home in the World” (director Andreas Kofoed), the EDN-led Moving Docs programme recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the most helpless victims of today’s crises: refugee children… Bravo, and bravo also for the openness that Bolvinkel showed towards the Russian in the audience – you (film clubs?, Documentary Guild?, Doker festival) can join if you want to show European films. Unfortunately it can not go the the other way, as Moving Docs is paid by the EU.

Over the bridge to Malmø from Copenhagen based EDN. Maja Lindquist took the floor as the first one sunday morning talking about ”The Doc Lounge Experience” with the subtitle ”how to attract new and young audiences to documentaries”. Lindquist who is also programmer for the Nordisk Panorama festival has built up the Doclounge, that (wow!) during the 10 years has had 100000 visitors, has lounges in 19 cities in the Nordic countries (why only two in Denmark!), where people come to hang out, have a drink, watch a documentary, discuss it, or have a music experience afterwards. It has to be ”cool and hip” as Lindquist put it. There are great plans to expand the events with live streaming of discussions. It’s great, simply and you should read more about it, link below. And why not include a lounge or two in Saint Petersburg, there can be no technical problems, or?

The third of the four women I want to praise is Irina Shatalova, brilliant camerawoman, producer (”Linar”) and one of the filmmakers behind Doker that I have written about several times on filmkommentaren. Doker is much more than a festival, it is a film political initiative to create an audience for creative documentaries in Moscow and around in the huge country. Important screenings about important subjects, respect for the makers, long Q&A’s – no support from the Ministry of Culture, but there should be International money for this superb action for international documentaries – in 2015 40 films were shown from 32 countries. And good ones, I was in the jury, so I know. Check their website, below, and click above for previous texts on Doker.

Diana Tabakov from Czech Republic, what is she doing at a Russian-Nordic meeting? Well, organizer Viktor Skubey said to me, when we put together the program that we break the rules and include magnificent project DocAlliance in the program. We did. I will be brief as filmkommentaren has written about the high quality of DocAlliance again and again, and remember it costs €3.99 per month to subscribe and get access to film historical masterpieces as well as new films from all over, actually. And filmed masterclasses with Viktor Kossakovsky and Geoffrey Reggio and so on so forth. Tabakov did a fine show with funny pictures of a happy cat that hopes to be rich through vod and a sad grey cat after the discovery that you do not get rich from vod… But if you try all the platforms available, she said and showed an image of the possibilities. OMG, I thought, then better be poor and happy. Check the website below for that as well.

Photo: Irina Sahatalova on the Square of the Winter Palace at the M2M opening last friday.

One more final report tomorrow.

www.edn.dk

www.doclounge.se

https://filmfreeway.com/festival/MIDFF

www.dafilms.com  

M2M How Docs Reach the Audience/ 2

Maria Muskevich, director and producer, on her way to the Warsaw International Film Festival for the European premiere of the film ”Putin Forever” (director Kirill Nenashev) – the first lines of the film’s synopsis: … ” The day before Vladimir Putin’s presidential inauguration, on 6 May 2012, a protest march took place in Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square opposite the Kremlin, demanding Putin’s resignation and honest elections in Russia. This peaceful march was brutally dispersed by the police special forces…” – talked about the film club movement in Russia. 20-30 clubs are active, not a lot in a huge country like Russia but the clubs are to be seen as tools to combine an audience and the makers. Muskevich and the Documentary Guild are looking for ways to better and enlarge the network.

Which brings us to the fact that 250 documentaries are every year supported by the Russian Ministry of Culture but a very small percentage of these reaches an audience… Critic, sales agent, teacher (Antipode Sales & Distribution) Anton Mazurov was very hard in his evaluation of the situation for Russian documentaries. He talked about ”corruption, nepotism, ideological tumors” in the

system around the Ministry of Culture support, ”nobody needs docs”, ”we don’t have money and we have brains that are sick”.

Nevertheless his company Antipode, that sells and distributes documentary films in the West – and feature films – have strong, what he called ”protest rebel” films. He showed clips from the award-winning ”My friend Boris Nemtsov”, ”Act and Punishment” (Pussy Riot), ”Grozny Blues” and the above mentioned ”Putin Forever” – all those films we see at Western European documentary festivals.

The intervention of Mazurov brought forward a lot of reactions, it seemed like many agreed with him on the lack of structure – why support 250 documentaries if there is no thoughts or plans on how to get them to the audience?

IF the atmosphere in the hall on this first day of the conference was a bit depressed after Mazurov, it all changed when Swedish producer Stina Gardell took the floor and with her charisma and enthusiasm gave us the story about how she got ”Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words” to become a cinema box office hit in Sweden with 200.000 tickets sold. ”You think it just comes like this”, she said referring to the hard work she did to 1) remind the Swedes about who Ingrid Bergman was, she was about to be forgotten… 2) to launch the film in Cannes… A fairy tale, yes, but she managed to get the actress on stamps, she created interest within the Cannes festival and she did so together with Isabella Rossellini, the daughter of Ingrid and Roberto R., Isabella, who wanted a film to be done and had approached critic and director Stig Björkman to hear if he could and would. He then came to Gardell, who did a marvellous work. For those of you who have seen the film – it IS ”in her own words” based on her diaries and her films and photos and clips from her films as an actress. Ingrid Bergman ended up on the posters of the Cannes Film Festival 2015, a tribute to the actress 100 years after her birth.

Stina Gardell was the star of the first day of the conference, see the photo with her and Bergman and Bogart on the big screen. Gardell wanted the film to go into cinemas and she succeeded.

More reports will follow, next one on the strong female speakers Cecilie Bolvinkel, Maja Lindquist and Irina Shatalova.

http://rgdoc.ru/en/

http://www.antipode-sales.biz/

http://www.mantarayfilm.se/start/

M2M How Docs Reach the Audience/ 1

Three Danes on stage. And a Russian technician, whose job it was, not always easy, during the whole first day of the conference, to have the computers connected to the system at Lendoc, where the conference ”How Docs Reach the Audience” with Nordic and Russian speakers takes place. While I am making the introduction to the conference, Liselotte Michelsen and Lisbeth Juhl Sibbesen from the Danish Film Institute (DFI) are getting ready to speak about the streamingsite(s) Filmcentralen that has subsites for both public viewing and one to be used in education. They did a great job inviting the audience to understand how the sites were built and they entertained with a wonderful short silent film, ”A Russian long distance swimmer in Copenhagen” in 1913. That film is one example from a fine collection that is available for everybody – and not only in Denmark. ”Denmark on Film” includes films from 1905-1965. Link below.

Another site is targeting elementary and high schools that can subscribe to get films into the class room, often with educational material available. There are 1600 films on this filmcentralen site and 614 on the site filmcentralen ”for alle” = ”for everybody”, where you can find films by documentary masters as Jørgen Leth and Jon Bang Carlsen. The latter site, the two speakers from DFI told, is right now threatened because of lack of financing. That is sad news after all these years with succesful negociations with the Danish producers to make the films reach the audience where they are, in their homes. And more so as the site is working and has an audience.

Cecilie Bolvinkel from EDN was the moderator of this first speech of the conference and had the boss of it all, St. Petersburg based producer and president of the Documentary Guild, Viktor Skubey, put questions about rights as did Mikhail Zheleznikov, programmer of the M2M festival’s In Silico section for experimental films. Misha was the one who answered my question if there was a streamingsite in Russia. There is, he said: http://www.rutracker.org/

More reports from the conference will follow.

http://filmcentralen.dk/museum/danmark-paa-film

Message2Man Opens

It was a grand opening last night of the 26th edition of the Message2Man festival in Saint Petersburg. It took place on the monumental Winter Palace Square, a historical place as it was shown through archive material from 1916, as you know the year before the Russian revolution. Surprisingly short speeches, a festive atmosphere, balloons reaching the sky, we were all equipped with rain coats and saw Werner Herzog go to the stage to receive the award for his life long contribution to cinema. He thanked and told the audience that his family is half Russian as he has been married to a Russian for 21 years. That created applause as did the rock band DTD that was very strong, they are from the city. And now today the festival takes off at the Velikan cinema complex with a huge program of short films, experimental works, animation and documentaries. And the conference between Nordic and Russian filmmakers, “How Docs Reach the Audience” at the Lendoc.

Photo: Alexey Golubev.

Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /5

… The verbal accompaniment must create new relationships and angles of approach to the pictorial material (even laconic): … Småbrukaren och kyrkogårdsarbetaren Hjalmar Nyberg, Nyåker, gräver grav för avlidne banmästaren Henrik Carlsson (Sune Jonsson)

 

NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th

By Sune Jonsson (1978)

5

The consummate photo-documentation requires verbal accompaniment. This must have a clear documentary conception and ideally possess formal competence as well. There are, for example, plenty of photographs documenting log driving. The most meritorious is Stig T. Karlsson‘s 1957 depiction from The Little Lule River. Lacking, however,is documentary material that, from the standpoint of primary worker experience, verbalizes the content of log driving. For that reason, it is regrettable, when Stig T. Karlsson’s pictures are published in book form, that documentary consistency is sacrificed, and instead, Stig Sjödin is asked to write an accompanying text that flaunts a poetic empathy with the work depicted, that is surely more literary hypothesis than adequate expression of the log driver’s own experience of his toil.

One can, thus, strive for a double-jointed documentation of higher artistic dignity than the conventional in which text is degraded to the status of picture description or where picture is used as an illustration for text. The verbal accompaniment must create new relationships and angles of approach to the pictorial material. Separately, text and picture each represent different documentary spheres of the same material, fruitful reflections of the topic from differing points of departure: a sort of picture/text counterpoint that results in polyphony and at the same time creates formal tension and multiplicity, gives relief to the material, deepens the content and authenticity of the documentation. In Jacques Henri Lartique’s Diary of a Century (1970), this occurs logically via extremely personal and illuminating diary extracts that are etched in with the same light of feeling as the photographs, a verbalized experience that has come into being at the same point of intersection between time and space as the pictures. (To be continued on Filmkommentaren with four more reflections…)

http://goldendaysfestival.dk/event/når-asfalten-gynger (Den nuværende udstilling på Hovedbiblioteket i København, sidste dag 24. september 2016)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3598/ (Tue Steen Müller om den tidligere udstilling)

https://randersbiografien.wordpress.com/museum-samling/ (Allan Berg Nielsen om Sune Jonsson)

FOTOS

Sune Jonsson: Småbrukaren och kyrkogårdsarbetaren Hjalmar Nyberg, Nyåker, gräver grav för avlidne banmästaren Henrik Carlsson.

Bogens forside, Jacques Henri Lartigue: Diary of a Centary, 1970.

Sune Jonsson: Nine reflections /4

… Their documentation is a distillate of reality itself. Their pictures are freed of all ephemeral, fashionable, and sentimental trappings. They nakedly describe universal situations that are allowed to speak right into the camera. (Sune Jonsson)

 

NINE REFLECTIONS CONCERNING 1/125th

By Sune Jonsson (1978)

4

One should disdain rules but must discuss principles.

I remember the 50s, when Henri Cartier-Bresson’s books began to come out and started photographers dreaming of the pure photographic image, the prettily arranged and seized 1/125th that was sufficient unto itself. Hasse Enström, Managing Editor of Tidningen Vi, went against that tide at the time, doggedly challenging the theory and requiring text commentaries of photographers offering him picture essays for sale.

In the fall of 1977, while we were stil in our photo-documentary rut and confusion of concepts, a one-volume facsimile edition of Ivar Lo-Johansson’s “social photopicture books” (Lo-Johansson’s own term) was published. The material had originally been published as a reportage series in Vi and can be described precisely as penetrating investigations bases on extraordinary expertise complemented by extensive picture desciptions. These documentaryphotography books, completely neglected by photographers formerly, have been received with a delight that tends to imply that, until they appeared, no documentary photography had existed in Sweden – and that since their publication, no other documentary photography has appeared, either.

That is typical of the murky terminology that equates political picture-activism with documentary photography. For Ivar Lo-Johansson’s part, the books were, of course, sheer political actions. And the photographers were in agreement with his aims and had subordinated themselves to them. But the fact that the polemical content of books like Ålderdom and Statarna i bild also becomes more profound and assumes documentary vigor – despite the book’s describing that no longer exist in this society – is conditions precisely the result of their powerful political content’s being an integral part of the documentary material itself, of the reality that is depicted. Sven Järlås‘s and Gunnar Lundh‘s pictures possess cogency and chastity. Their documentation is a distillate of reality itself. Their pictures are freed of all ephemeral, fashionable, and sentimental trappings. They nakedly describe universal situations that are allowed to speak right into the camera.

At the same time as they enriched their own now, they also became, by the same token, important documentary investments in the future. Preachiness and superficial political meddlesomeness, on the other hand, are ballast that rapidly ages and voraciously eats away at future readability. Both these Swedish photo books, incidentally, are conspicuous parallels to the classic FSA study of the American depression and farm crisis of the 30s. Photographers like Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, and Ben Shahn entered into a state project at that time, subordinating themselves to a political purpose but succeeding nevertheless in maintaining their documentary integrity and their crystal-clear photographic intellect. (To be continued on Filmkommentaren with six more reflections…)

FOTOS

Sune Johnsson: Banvakten och arbetsledaren Filip Hörnkvist, Brattsbacka, Nordmaling, tar minuter vid Bergsjø-skärningen, under inspektion av spåret söderut från Brattsbacka, juli 1956.

Finn Larsen, vignet: Opslag i Ivar Lo-Johanssons bog med fotografier af Gunnar Lundh.

http://goldendaysfestival.dk/event/når-asfalten-gynger (Den nuværende udstilling på Hovedbiblioteket i København, få dage endnu)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3598/ (Tue Steen Müller om den tidligere udstilling)

https://randersbiografien.wordpress.com/museum-samling/ (Allan Berg Nielsen om Sune Jonsson)