Movie Review: CAMERAPERSON
Cameraperson is cinematographer Kirsten Johnson’s extraordinary meditative autobiographical retrospective of her decades-long career shooting documentaries across the US and around the world for Laura Poitras, Michael Moore, Kirby Dick and a host of other leading nonfic filmmakers.
Without a conventional story through line or interpretive voiceover narration, Johnson draws upon her extensive archive of her own beautifully shot footage of times of crisis and joy in places ranging from Alabama, Brooklyn and Washington, DC to war torn Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur and Bosnia present her broad overview of the global human condition and state of the planet.
With Nels Bangerter’s sensitive and wise editing, seemingly disparate scenes are rolled into themes that reflect Johnson’s concerns – one of which is the constant tension between keeping to her cameraperson’s ethics as an observer and her belief that she’s present to record rather than influence her subject’s stories, and her ever present impulse as a kind and empathetic person to set things straight for her subjects when and if she can.
The archival footage that chronicles particular moments of lasting importance and impact for Johnson is contextualized with personal videos of her personal family life, including haunting scenes of her mother’s progressing Alzheimers. Cameraperson is not only a masterclass in documentary filmmaking, it’s a must see artistic masterpiece.
explore: abby disney | cameraperson | kirsten johnson