Errol Morris Ruminates on Truth in Photography
The topic of truth in photography will earn a lot of groans from the other photo history nerds out there: Aside from “is photography art?”, no other question is bandied about (usually with colossal tedium) as the one about photography’s propensity for fibs. In yesterday’s New York Times, filmmaker Errol Morris picks up the gauntlet with the essay, Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. It won’t be anything terribly new to anyone who’s read John Berger or shared an apartment with a photo major, but it’s a well-written piece, and it’s interesting to see it so prominently in the Times.
And if nothing else, it’s a great reminder about what an fascinating filmmaker Errol Morris is: Throughout his career, he has sought to uncover Truth in his films, using vastly different approaches (many of which he pioneered in the documentary genre). From the verite style of Vernon, Florida to the recreation-and-collage techniques of Thin Blue Line, to his Interrotron, so brilliantly used in Fog of War, Morris has been restless in his pursuit to examine the methods with which we seek life’s truths, and the lies we encounter along the way.
But why this photograph? It’s so terribly bland. I wanted to begin this series of essays on photography with an image chosen particularly for its blandness. Removed in time, far from our core knowledge, it is unfamiliar. We know little about it. We most likely do not recognize it as the Lusitania. We might think it’s an early-20th-century ocean liner, and perhaps even imagine it may be the Titanic – at which point we have placed a kind of mental caption under the photograph, and we begin to see the photograph in terms of our associations and beliefs, about what it seems to say about reality.
It is also interesting how a photograph quickly changes when we learn more about what it depicts, when we provide a context, when we become familiar with an underlying story. And when we make claims about the photograph using language. For truth, properly considered, is about the relationship between language and the world, not about photographs and the world.
So here’s a story…
(Morris’ website has tons of great video from his movies, TV spots, and commerical work.)