The Bang Bang ClubPosted by Strauss Herbert on February 2nd, 2021 How far can you go for a good photo? This question haunted the South African photojournalist Kevin Cartner, who took a photo in Sudan in the early 1990s of a starving girl kneeling in the desert who was being chased by a vulture. For this photo, published in The New York Times, Carter received the coveted Pulitzer Prize. At the same time, however, he was confronted in numerous interviews with the question of what happened to the dying girl. He couldn't answer that question. A year later he took his own life. TIME Magazine reported on the death of the 33-year-old photographer and the issue fell into the hands of Steven Silver, who was shooting in South Africa. Silver, who is known for his multi-award-winning documentaries, immediately started researching and found the Bang Bang Club, which was made up of three other photographers besides Cartner - Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek and João Silva. The Bang Bang Club is actually not an exclusive association, but a provisional name given to the four photographers. For the Johannesburg newspaper The Star, they documented the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994 with their impressive pictures and the related disputes among the local population. It was only thanks to this team that the world could experience the true price of peace in South Africa, which cost the lives of 20,000 people. Silver met with surviving photographers and learned about a book by Marinovich and Silva that was being prepared for publication. The filmmaker secured the rights and processed it in his feature film debut called "The Bang Bang Club". The drama premiered at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival. swatchmovies : 28-year-old Greg (Ryan Phillippe) arrives in the south-west of Johannesburg. He wants to get the coveted orders for The Star and decides to take a few pictures in the unrest-torn region. On the way he witnesses the murder of a black boy. He sees three photographers doing their job right in the middle of what they see. A little later they leave the crime scene, while Greg decides to take the risky action of going straight to the camp of the angry Zulu warriors and taking pictures there. His courage pays off. He gets what he wanted: pictures, the job at the magazine and, a little later, the picture editor as a lover. The three other guys, who turned out to be well-known photographers named Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch), Ken Oosterbroek (Frank Rautenbach) and João Silva (Neels Van Jaarsveld), soon include him in their close circle and the four men become inseparable. From now on they work side by side on their life-threatening documentaries during the day, and in the evening they visit the nearby nightclubs accompanied by their friends to get drunk and intoxicated. In the last few days before the elections, the four journalists will be given one last test of courage, which not all of them will survive ... The opening sequence of the film shows Kevin Carter in a radio interview when he is confronted with questions about the Sudanese girl and what makes a good photo. The scene is interrupted abruptly and with no response from Kevin to show the actual plot - the events in South Africa. However, this will continue from the point of view of Greg Marinovich. The director comes to the first sequence about 20 minutes before the finale. The thematic foresight of the documentary filmmaker Steven Silver can lead to confusion as to what the film is actually about: Kevin, Greg, the war or moral responsibilities in the photojournalistic profession? The questions are asked here, but not answered. Silver is primarily concerned with the story and not, as with his renowned colleagues from Hollywood, primarily with the characters. The history of the Bang Bang Club is the documentation of a conflict. That is why the audience of "The Bang Bang Club" is forced to accompany the reporters for a full two hours while they are photographing a warring South African population. The crime happens so often and so numerous that a blunting effect can set in over the course of the film Silver uses long shots to create the portrait of a father who has just lost his son; when he shows him telling stories and shedding tears - the life-threatening everyday reality described here is not straightforward for an audience sitting in the safe cinema seat at the other end of the world negotiable. In turn, it could help to use the advantages of the narrative medium of cinema and - as long as a filmmaker can still master the necessary rules of classic narration - a closer relationship to the characters heart
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