Cameraperson review: The critically acclaimed documentary arrives on UK soil following an impressive debut at Sundance 2016.
Read our Cameraperson review below.
You may not know the name Kirsten Johnson, but you may very well have engaged with her work without realising. Johnson has been a cinematographer on many outstanding documentaries of recent years including Citizenfour and This Film is Not Yet Rated. She has demonstrated an incredibly keen eye over her years as a cinematographer, seemingly as awed by her subjects as we the viewer are. Her vast body of work is what makes up the crux of her latest feature Cameraperson. Here she has constructed visual memoir comprised of outtakes and snippets of unused footage from across the films of her career. It is a documentary that proves to be as profound and as stimulating as any of her esteemed career highlights.
From a boxer in New York, to children playing in Bosnia, to the open roads of Missouri, many locales and individuals are shown to us through Johnson’s loose and scattered account. There isn’t an apparent form to Johnson’s selection (we aren’t even told what film the clips are outtakes from until the end), but what she does construct through this glorified outtake reel is an excellent meta-exploration of both her career and the filmic form itself.
There are many moments throughout Cameraperson in which we hear Johnson’s own mutterings behind the camera, either giggling at something occurring on screen who noticeably shocked by something she is capturing. There is even a moment where the camera is placed in a field, capturing a beautiful moment, but one that has a blade of grass very close to the lens, almost invading the shot. What does Johnson do? She puts her hand across the screen and removes said blade, balancing the composition. Yet at another moment in Bosnia she witnesses an unattended young boy wield an axe, to her distinguishable shock, yet she does not intervene.
It is in exploring the position and role of the cinematographer in capturing certain events and scenes that Cameraperson reveals what it is offering to you, the viewer. This isn’t just a look back at some of Johnson’s favourite shots that hit the cutting room floor, this is an examination of the photographer’s role in capturing events, provoking questions of active and impartial participation. Is it ok to remove that blade of grass and to not take the axe from that boy’s hand? Johnson is asking you to judge her, giving a warts and all depiction of her craft and her decision making within it.
While it does ask some very big questions in regards to filmmaking and the position of the filmmaker, Johnson is also concerned with creating a personal account, giving us glimpses in to her personal life along with the more politically driven images. It means that, at times, some of the images presented to us seem a little superfluous, and the approach does often threaten to become a little repetitive, threatening to dilute Johnson’s very ambitious experiment.
It is unlikely that you have ever seen a documentary quite like this, one which strives to be a personal memoir, all the while addressing very complex and engaging issues surrounding documentary-making in general. It is a fascinating and largely successful exploration of a form, a body of work, and of an incredibly talented cinematographer. Utterly captivating.
Cameraperson review by Andrew Gaudion, January 2017.
Cameraperson is released in selected UK cinemas by Dogwoof on Friday 27th January 2017.
