During the Q&A following the sold-out screening Saturday
night of Richard Parry’s Blood Trail,
which chronicles the entire (so far) 15 year career of acclaimed American war
photographer Robert King, someone asked King (pictured above) to elaborate on
the “addiction to violence” that seems to drive him and others in his field.
After a thoughtful pause, a compassionate King responded, “It’s not really an
addiction to violence. We’re certainly not addicted to seeing dead bodies. We
do have addictive personalities, but as far as the work is concerned it’s an
addiction to preserving a sense of history so that it can be told properly in
years to come.”
It seems fair to say that such a mature response would have
never occurred to King in 1992 when, fresh out of art school at the age of 24,
he flew to Sarajevo
on a $1,500 budget to launch his career as a war photographer. A career which,
he hoped at the time, would lead him to a Pulitizer no later than age 29. The
consensus among his newfound colleagues, to whom he looked greener than grass,
was that the naïve but sincere young man would be lucky simply to live that
long if he continued to pursue his dream.
A decade and a half later, with a well-earned reputation as
a reliable shooter and cover photos in The Guardian, Time, Newsweek and other
major publications to his credit, King has come more to terms with the demons
and dysfunctions that compelled him to, as one person says in the film, “take
pictures of things that no one wants to see”. Indeed, one of the fascinating
things about Blood Trail is that it allows us to bear witness to King’s
confrontation with his demons as it happens – much like a good war
photographer.
You’ll have another chance to catch Blood Trail this
afternoon at 12:45pm at AMC 9 and Friday evening at 8:15 at AMC 3.
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