Meeting Joseph Kony (Uganda 2006) and the power of the camera

A bit of additional information relating to my previous post about Kony 2012. I have recently subscribed to a documentary channel on youtube called Journeyman Pictures. It is a very interesting channel covering a vast amount of issues in many countries including Iran, Afganistan, Argentina, and Belarus. Recently on the 8th March 2012 two videos were released about Kony: one documenting an unpredictable meeting with the LRA leader in 2006 (shown below) and the second from 2010 following the Ugandan army 'manhunt' in catching Kony.


Meeting Joseph Kony - Uganda June 2006

Initially I was dubious on which lead this 15 min short film would take after the amount of criticism that KONY 2012 got the day before. This documentary is more journalistic than KONY 2012 and provides a broader look on the subject of the LRA and not just focusing on Kony. The title initially grabbed me as seeing the phrase 'Meeting Joseph Kony' was bizarre after hearing that he was hard man to find. However this footage was shot in 2006, and  it is unbelievable that in such a short space of time this man has apparently literally disappeared from the face of the world. 

The power of the video camera is very evident here. Firstly the reporter and cameraman is British and he is not seen throughout the film. Yet his presence is made through asking very direct and specific questions such as: "do you believe that the spirts talk to him (to Kony)?" and "how many spirts does Kony have?" to which the solider replies very confidently: "yes", "three". I was very confused by this until I found out that 'hearing' spirits is common culture throughout Africa. I think the most shocking part of this film is not really seeing the destruction that the LRA have done but the meeting of Kony himself, who, in some ways, has become the new social media Face of Terror.

What Kony had to say didn't come as a surprise. He was clearly informed that a camera was in the area so obviously he was not going to admit to the crimes he is charged with. The first time the viewer sees Kony he does a hand action which resembles holding a camera. Interestingly there are no visible child soldiers in the film apart from one young child holding a gun at the beginning. Kony begins by saying that Journeyman Pictures is the first journalist to interview him in his jungle hideout in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and issues a chilling statement: "now you have seen me, I am a human being, like you." He describes himself to be a freedom fighter but actually he comes across as a lying, manipulative man. The presense of the camera significantly alters his actions and words. The journalist also comments on a slight change of attitude from the leader when he is talking to his 'recruited' men about what would happen if he was in power. 

In this short film we see the power of the camera and the way it can change peoples behaviours. Stella A. Bain and James S. Baxter state in their report on "Interrogative suggestibility: The role of
interviewer behaviour":

"All witnesses, victims and suspects enter an interrogation with a general cognitive set regarding the situation. This cognitive set is influenced by uncertainty about the subject-matter of the interrogation, the degree of interpersonal trust witnesses feel towards the interrogator, and their expectations regarding what is about to happen. This general cognitive set can facilitate either a resistant or suggestible behavioural response to the interrogation."

~ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/135532500168029/pdf (accessed 11.03.2012)

The viewer has to consider the validity of the interview.  This interview is useful as it gave Kony the chance to speak instead of just being known by his face and his 'presence' across Uganda. But it is clear that the pressure of being interviewed and documented on film means that Kony's statement is highly unreliable and the viewer has to rely on the other images that Journeyman pictures also screens in the film. I leave this blog entry by quoting a statement the sociologist Ann Oakley, made about Interviews in 1981:

“Interviewing is rather like a marriage: everybody knows what it is, an awful lot of people do it, and yet behind each closed front door there is a world of secrets.” 

~ http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=utk_nurspubs (accessed 11.03.2012)

The road to Rome is not my road, so I'll take you along to a place called --

Uganda. Where Joseph Kony was born in1961. Today, unless you've been living in a cave it would of been hard to ignore the small docu-film that was posted on youtube yesterday about Kony.

This film has informed millions of people about the campaign work that Invisible children has been doing since 2003 but it also has sparked an overwhelming amount of criticism. An opposing blog called Visible children strongly disagrees with the campaign, stating: 

"Military intervention may or may not be the right idea, but people supporting KONY 2012 probably don’t realise they’re supporting the Ugandan military who are themselves raping and looting away. If people know this and still support Invisible Children because they feel it’s the best solution based on their knowledge and research, I have no issue with that. But I don’t think most people are in that position, and that’s a problem."

I must admit when I watched the film and saw that the activists in some scenes in the video I thought they were represented as extremely aggressive and 'war' like.  I too, have my doubts on whether or not military intervention is the best method. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. However this film, as a documentary, does exactly what it sets out to do: document, inform and persuade. The millions of views and shares on facebook and twitter proves that the Invisible children organisation has got their message across. Any other organisation fighting for the same issue and who opposes the use of military intervention should make a video and propose another way to 'fight' the problem.

On defining the documentary Bill Nichols cites that "the heart and soul of any definition arises within a specific social and historical context and it varies with time and place...(this) means that no single, timeless definition can capture what documentary film has been or might yet be." ( Bill Nichols, "At the edges of Hollywood: Documentary" in The cinema book, pp. 81-83, third edition, ed Cook, P., 2007, Palgrave MacMillan, London) The documentary film is always evolving and this short film complements Nichols' statement perfectly as this film highlights the availability of technology in the 21st century in contrast to the soviet Cinéma vérité style: described by Dziga Vertov in the 1940s were there were no actors, no decors, no script and no acting as can been seen in my first post about the Nuremberg trials made in 1947. Overtime the meaning of the term use Cinéma vérité has evolved and is now also used when describing Reality television (or Cinema direct) which is more of a sociological investigative study where the director intervenes in the staging of the shots and put the footage through the editing process. 

The film drama is the Opium of the people…down with Bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios…long live life as it is!

—Dziga Vertov

In the same way KONY 2012 is also a sociological study with the main point of focus being Jacob, a young boy who managed to escape Kony's group the LRA (Lord's Resistance Arny). He is interviewed by the director and we also see his development from a boy to a young adult. The film, as a whole puts forward a politicised and at times radical militant view of the subject. Jason Russell, the director, does not conceal the amount of work that went into the making of the short 30 min film. He provides a long list of names who contributed to the production of the film and the use of animation, 3D modelling, visual effects, narration (script), and Cinematography. Therefore the use of technological advances has helped make this film clear and concise; whilst the montage shots of people marching, chanting, holding up banners omits a strong sense of collective unity along with the viewer which then gives them a sense of urgency and making them ask "what can I do about this?" Showing the scrolling of a facebook time line page (which the viewer recognises) and the zooming in and out of the impressive 3D globe and digitalised maps puts the spectator literally 'on the map' helping them identify with a specific time and place highlighting that 'this is happening now, at this immediate moment in time' which is empowering and reminds the viewer that this is not an historical documentary.

What affected me most however was the use of cinematography and, as it were the mise-en-scene, with the repeated use of guns, army uniforms and the the use of a hand salute (pictured in the screen shot below) which is an extended upright arm with the peace sign. This frame provides so many contrasting views: peace but with the slogan 'fight war', the collective masses all following one cause, in the same uniform with a strong upright arm. The image of the salute is such a powerful one and is associated primarily with the military. Although salutes are still used today, the powerful, aggressive images of salutes shown throughout radical periods in history are the ones which leave a lasting impression (second photograph of a Pro-National front march in 1979). 

"We've seen these kids, we've heard their cries, this war must end, we will not stop, we will not fear, we will fight war"

Pro-National Front marchers give the Nazi salute as they interrupt an anti-fascist rally in London’s East End in April 1979. 

Documentaries make us question a lot about the world. Primarily, they makes us question the truth. I did share KONY 2012 on my facebook because I felt strongly against Kony and the LRA but I do not agree with military intervention. Among other things, military intervention prevents these men from being put on trial for their crimes agaisnt humanity like in the case of Bin Laden, killed by the US Military and Gaddaffi, killed by the militant Rebel group. Although some people think there is no need for a trial, it is still more democratic. More importantly, however, the film resolved with a sense of "happy ever after" for the victims of the LRA showing them reunited with their families but the the LRA has been operating for many years, taking over 30,000 children and so even if the charity does not abandon these victims after Kony and (possibly) the LRA are gone, the process of the aftermath is going to be even more laborious.

The mind works in twists and turns.

For a while now I have wanted to start a blog and so after several failed attempts I believe I have finally settled on a subject which I can talk about  without boring myself or you, reader. That subject is: Film. All films, well any that I can get my student hands on.  It seems like the perfect time to start a film blog as the recent 84^th Academy Awards highlighted the importance of the beginning of the film industry:  with a reminder of the brilliance of the silent film in “The Artist” (2011) and Martin Scorsese’s reference to good old George Méliès in “Hugo” (2011); with each film scooping up five Oscar’s. 

Referring to myself as a film student often gets a few sneers and usually “doesn’t that mean you just watch a shit load of films?” Well, naturally. To be able to talk about film I obviously need to watch them. But if anyone thinks that I sat through four hours of D.W Griffiths' silent film “Birth of a Nation” (1915) for my own pleasure, one would be mistaken. I do love silent film but not for four hours and not with such an obnoxious storyline. I watched it as it is a treasured piece of cinema and there is no doubt in any cinema-lovers mind how influential Griffiths was for cinema progression; the film is not a classic for  its representation of history (dear God, no) but for Griffith’s pioneering use of the modern camera and one of the first directors to introduce the use of the narrative to the cinema. 

Moving on, four years down the line and currently in the middle of writing my dissertation on Italian cinema of the 1970’s, I find myself analysing in detail and annoyingly criticising every film I watch. I’ve become a frequent viewer of old movies telling anyone who will listen about my obsession with Cary Grant (well, he is a beaut). Needless to say a typical day for me consists of watching, at least, one film. I watch films in no particular order skipping from 1930s Britain, to 1960s Italy, back to 1950s America and coming back into the present. My blog entries will be in no particular order, and I begin on a debated form of cinema, the documentary.  Documentaries have a very on/off, love/ hate relationship with modern society. The first pieces of film to grace the silver screen can be considered to be documentaries as the main aim was to film everyday occurrences, for example some of the first films of the Lumiere brothers like "L'Arrivée d'un Train a la Ciotatfrom" in 1985. Nowadays there are so many types all with the same general aims to educate, highlight, inform, and shock spectators who want to discover more about the society they live in or how society was. 

“WWII: Nuremberg Trials” or “Sud narodov” (1947) is a Soviet Russian documentary about the notorious Nazi war trials post- WWII and the criminals being brought to justice, with archive footage of  Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Josef Goebbels and Hermann Göring among others. It was directed by Roman Karmen and Yelizaveta Svilova. The film contains disturbing footage of the aftermath of the holocaust as well as the result of the trials. Having a strange fascination with this period of history it is interesting to be able to view this era and it is just as important to preserve this footage so one doesn’t forget. Film footage, like this, can be more shocking than history books as the audience is forced to see images of reality in all its brutality. In addition this film is also a Soviet propaganda piece with the narrator informing the public about the great Soviets victory over the ‘evil Germans'. Like most documentary films, it has to be viewed with a perspective of when it was released and the attitude of society it was being distributed to. Thus, it has to be taken with a pinch of salt. A look at the trials from another side, the American public, can be seen in "The Nuremberg Trials documentary" (1950) from the film archive.

I realise this isn't the lightest of subjects to begin my blog, and as Mr Fawlty would say: "don't mention the war" but, for me, these documentaries illustrate the importance of film in today's society in reflecting the past and serving as a beginning to the first of many more posts to come.