Roger Ebert seems to think this documentary is authentic. Others are speculating that it could be a big artistic hoax, something similar to Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop documentary. But Casey Affleck says it’s all true (Time). Watch the trailers and visit the official website.
 | We have only to speak of an object to think that we are being objective. But, because we chose it in the first place, the object reveals more about us than we do about it. What we consider to be our fundamental ideas concerning the world are often indications of the immaturity of our minds. Sometimes we stand in wonder before a chosen object; we build up hypotheses and reveries; in this way we form convictions which have all the appearance of true knowledge. But the initial source is impure: the first impression is not fundamental truth. In point of fact, scientific objectivity is possible only if one has broken first with the immediate object, if one has refused to yield to seduction of the initial choice, if one has checked and contradicted the thoughts which arise from one’s first observation. |
Here’s the original French text:
Il suffit que nous parlions d’un objet pour nous croire objectifs. Mais par notre premier choix, l’objet nous désigne plus que nous le désignons et ce que nous croyons nos pensées fondamentales sur le monde sont souvent des confidences sur la jeunesse de notre esprit. Parfois nous nous émerveillons devant un objet élu; nous accumulons les hypothèses et les rêveries; nous formons ainsi des convictions qui ont l’apparence du savoir. Mais la source initiale est l’impure: l’évidence première n’est pas une vérité fondamentale. En fait, l’objectivité scientifique n’est possible que si l’on a d’abord rompu avec l’objet immédiat, si l’on a refusé la séduction du premier choix, si l’on a arrêté et contredit les pensées qui naissent de la première observation. (éd. Gallimard, coll. Idées, Paris, [1938]1949, p. 9)
Gaston Bachelard was a French epistemologist. Learn more on Wikipedia.
| But is it a collectible work of art? Those who own it are trying to find out. In an unusual twist even for a picture outside the norms — its Oscar-winning lead, William Hurt, paused his red-hot career to play a film-struck homosexual for almost no fee when that still seemed more suicidal than savvy — David Weisman, the movie’s producer, and David S. Phillips, who joined him later in acquiring its rights, are planning in coming weeks to offer “Kiss of the Spider Woman” for sale as an artwork. By that, they mean an object of beauty. The film is now available in its entirety — its copyright, negatives, prints, digital video masters and more — along with a carefully preserved archive that includes 313 boxes of 35-millimeter outtakes, five drafts of the screenplay by Leonard Schrader and a stack of rejection letters from studio executives who were sure that the movie would never work. |
First spotted via Bifurcations, Sarah Choukah’s research blog. Learn more about her work here.
| The problem with people saying that others have deceptive goals (such as manipulation, hidden strategies and conspiracies, which can fit into what Habermas calls “systematic distortion” in The theory of communicative action, volume 1, 1984, Boston: Beacon press at page 332) while communicating is that if no other ground of justification is provided aside from an alternative view of the deceptive party’s real intentions, that hidden-but-revealed ground means not much more than the accuser’s own preconceptions of the world and the motives of those who participate in it (example: “corporations control our desires” is an assertion which is hardly grounded in any alternative view. As corporations reach into deeper layers of our psyche, as they permeate every aspect of our daily lives, and mostly, as they predate our own generation, who is to know what a genuine desire feels like or how it is autonomously produced ?). The latent character of deception provides a specular avowal of its discoverer’s self-interest (like the weird idea of genuine desire). His accusation cannot be extracted from its context to mean something more “real” or “true”, only another attempt at control or deception. |
From the book: “The photographic lens is an instrument of great precision, but it does not discriminate between the essential and the unessential, and so when the lens is used un such a way as to give clear definition of detail where it is wanted, there is often equally claer definition of detail where it is not wanted. The lens does not create lines and wrinkles and blemishes on the face, but it merely reproduces them when they are and makes these unimportant details just as prominent as the important ones. Therefore it is sometimes necessary to subdue such imperfections or to remove them entirely by means of the knife or the pencil.”
This book is freely available online via the Internet Archive
It made me think about many comments I read lately related to a photo by Richard Avedon showing numerous and detailed instructions to his printer (follow this link to see both the original and the instructions). Similar comments can be found on Errol Morris’ blog (see for example his seven-part series about The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock and, more recently, his two-part series It Was All Started by a Mouse; Errol Morris’ analyses are a must read). They all revolved around the same topic : the truthfullness or honesty of the photographic medium (and, by extension, of the photographer’s work). On the same subject, Eva Baines wrote a short piece on “An Abbreviated History of Photo-Manipulation” (Jan. 24th, 2009) reminding the reader about Dorothea Lange’s manipulation of “The Migrant Mother” (1936).
Conscientious is Jörg Colberg’s weblog about fine-art photography (and more).
”Question: What is the difference among these three photographs?
I invite the Times readership to respond. Is it photojournalism, propaganda or art, and why?
Answer: There is no difference. The photographs are the same. (Although the three captions are different.)”
It reminded me of the famous “Kuleshov Effect”.
