I'm a film person.
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| Taylor Kitsch as Kevin Carter |
I've been hearing buzz about this new film called "The Bang Bang Club". I blogged about it a previous post but, it was more of a Taylor Kitsch swoon fest. I really am skeptical of Taylor's take on Kevin Carter. I had been reading about him 2 months prior to the Bang Bang buzz and really I'm not too sure if this is going to be legit. When you read about this guy, you find out so much more about him than the public's perception of him. Everyone makes him out to be a cautionary tale...but really, Kevin wasn't a product of celebrity. He was a product of war. I don't know about you but I can't imagine getting up in the morning and taking pictures of death, getting shot at, watching the people around you be murdered and still have to go home to a family.
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| Kevin Carter |
"Well-armed government security forces used excessive firepower. The chaotic hand-to-hand street fighting between black factions involved AK-47s, spears and axes. "At a funeral some mourners caught one guy, hacked him, shot him, ran over him with a car and set him on fire," says Silva, describing a typical encounter. "My first photo showed this guy on the ground as the crowd told him they were going to kill him. We were lucky to get away."
Sometimes it took more than a camera and camaraderie to get through the work. Marijuana, known locally as dagga, is widely available in South Africa. Carter and many other photojournalists smoked it habitually in the townships, partly to relieve tension and partly to bond with gun-toting street warriors. Although he denied it, Carter, like many hard-core dagga users, moved on to something more dangerous: smoking the "white pipe," a mixture of dagga and Mandrax, a banned tranquilizer containing methaqualone. It provides an intense, immediate kick and then allows the user to mellow out for an hour or two.
By 1991, working on the dawn patrol had paid off for one of the Bang-Bang Club. Marinovich won a Pulitzer for his September 1990 photographs of a Zulu being stabbed to death by A.N.C. supporters. That prize raised the stakes for the rest of the club -- especially Carter. And for Carter other comparisons cropped up. Though Oosterbroek was his best friend, they were, according to Nachtwey, "like the polarities of personality types. Ken was the successful photographer with the loving wife. His life was in order." Carter had bounced from romance to romance, fathering a daughter out of wedlock. In 1993 Carter headed north of the border with Silva to photograph the rebel movement in famine-stricken Sudan. To make the trip, Carter had taken a leave from the Weekly Mail and borrowed money for the air fare. Immediately after their plane ) touched down in the village of Ayod, Carter began snapping photos of famine victims. Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, high-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not, and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried. "He was depressed afterward," Silva recalls. "He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter."
SO...
With this being said. Do you think that Taylor Kitsch can seriously do this? Properly? If he does, there's going to be some massive Ledger-esque depression. Personally,I'm a bit skeptical. Shedding 30 pounds and taking some photography classes isn't going to cut it. Maybe if he lived in South Africa for a while and spent day in and day out photographing the genocides of the white south africans...Maybe. Now I'm not saying that I want to drive the man to suicide. But I'm just skeptical.
But hey, I write films...I don't act in them.
