美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Cameraperson' Captures A Filmmaker's Memoir Through Snippets Of Her Subjects

'Cameraperson' Captures A Filmmaker's Memoir¹ Through Snippets Of Her Subjects 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0000:00repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser² to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: 

The new film "Cameraperson" begins on a mountainside in Bosnia. There's an old man on a horse herding³ some sheep. The only sound is the occasional bleating⁴ from the animals as they move along. As the viewer, it's not really clear what we're supposed to take away from this moment. The director, Kirsten Johnson, did that on purpose. The film is a non-narrated montage of moments from the hours of footage Johnson has shot over her lifetime. And the whole thing is about taking the audience behind the camera. This is her experience as the cameraperson.

KIRSTEN JOHNSON: Initially⁵, you're just dropped into worlds. You can't speak the language. You don't know where you are. But there's some sheep. They're looking at you. There's a bolt of lightning. There's a bunch of little girls in Myanmar walking down a hill. And so you get compelled out into the world in the way that we all love to be by images and by movies, right?

MARTIN: Kirsten Johnson said she felt compelled to make this film because of another project she had worked on in Afghanistan, a documentary she had started in 2009 with three young Afghan women.

JOHNSON: Three years into the process, I showed the film that was virtually completed to the young woman who was in it. And she said, I'm too afraid to be in this movie. And I was so blindsided by it. You know, we had been complicit throughout the whole process. But what I realized was that times had changed.

You know, I'm a documentarian of the old school, pre-the-internet, pre-smartphones when everyone has become a cameraperson. And we can't control what happens to the images that we shoot. So it really set me thinking about all of these ethical⁶ dilemmas⁷ that have always existed for me. But they have a different meaning now than they ever have before.

MARTIN: How did you think of yourself in this film? Because we do see your face, just once though. But you are the protagonist⁸, in a way.

JOHNSON: Well, what really surprised me in the work of making the film was defined how much evidence and me there was, you know. And people always sort of say, what does it mean to be a woman cameraperson? And so I've thought a lot about that through the course of my career. But what I didn't realize before making this film is there's evidence of the ways in which I am a woman at different moments in my life.

So there's a moment in which, you know, I just am falling in love with people that I'm filming over and over again. There's other times in my career where I'm looking intently at babies. There are other moments in my life where I'm, you know, known by the sound people behind me who helped me notice that it's hard for me to hold shots as long as I used to because I'm so involved in thinking about my mother's Alzheimer's. So that was what was fascinating in looking back at this footage, to discover how there I am, the specific person that I am. I am present in the footage.

MARTIN: You do include short clips of your twin kids...

JOHNSON: Yeah, Viva and Felix.

MARTIN: ...And your mom, who had Alzheimer's.

JOHNSON: Yes.

MARTIN: What was that process like, deciding to include those parts of your life?

JOHNSON: You know, my mother would not have wanted me to show these images of her in this film. And it's a fundamental betrayal of her. And I know that. It's also a complete expression of how much I love her. And that was what the act of filming was. You know, I - she didn't want me to film her. And yet I did because I knew I was losing her.

And so that contradiction is so implicit⁹ in that material as it is in the material with my kids. My kids can't give their permission to be in this film. And when they grow up, they may feel differently about it than I think they will. And that's part of the not knowing the future that we engage with when we film others or photograph others.

MARTIN: I want to play some tape, and I'll set this up a little bit. This is a scene where you are, along with a colleague, filming a young woman who's struggling with a decision on whether or not to have an abortion¹⁰. And it's very powerful. You're keeping her anonymity¹¹, and so the shot is fixed¹² on her lap and her hands.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: The only rule I'm going to give you is you may not say I'm not a good person - anyone, 'cause that is not the case. An unintended pregnancy¹³ is an unintended pregnancy. That's all it is. I'm not kidding.

JOHNSON: Yeah, me too (laughter). And it's also happened to all of us.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Yeah.

JOHNSON: We've all had unintended pregnancies¹⁴.

MARTIN: So this young woman, just before that, had said she thinks she's not a good person because she has gotten pregnant. We hear you and your colleague Dawn Porter both telling her, no, that's not - that's not true. Which is the natural human instinct, right? To console this woman.

JOHNSON: Yeah, that's right. And we're all trying to communicate to her that we're all women who've experienced versions of making choices like these. And I'm the one who says, you know, we've had unintended pregnancies. And I have. And I'm often most physically¹⁵ close to the person that I'm filming. I'm trying to articulate and express the ways in which I understand them. I'm interested in them. I allow whatever they want to bring to the moment. And it was the honor of the moment of filming, in a case like that, to get to share a really difficult moment with a person and say, we are with you.

MARTIN: Has this tension vexed¹⁶ you over the years, thinking about if and when to engage with the subjects you're filming and what impact that has on their reality, the reality you're trying to capture?

JOHNSON: Yeah, I would say I'm almost always involved in that vexing¹⁷ problem. There's a scene in the film where we watch a couple of toddlers with an axe¹⁸ and I'm going back and forth¹⁹ on sort of moving forward to stop them, to continue filming them, and, you know, breathing behind the camera. And this scene exists for me as this very clear expression of the fact - as much as we struggle to be decent, ethical people, the complex reality of this world demands that we continue to question this at all moments.

You know, all of us being camerapeople, all of us with a phone in our pocket - what are we filming, what are we photographing? Those questions are what I want this film to open and raise and give, you know, sort of this energetic, generative, kind space for 'cause there's a lot of pain. And there's a lot of misrepresentation of many things going on in the world. And I feel like if we could all open up to the vulnerability of this, it would be very meaningful.

MARTIN: The film is called "Cameraperson." The cameraperson behind the camera is Kirsten Johnson. She's the director. She talked to us from our studios in New York. Kirsten, thank you so much.

JOHNSON: Oh, thank you. It's been a pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF TAPE)

1 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

2 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

3 herding   

中畜群

参考例句：

• The little boy is herding the cattle. 这个小男孩在放牛。
• They have been herding cattle on the tableland for generations. 他们世世代代在这高原上放牧。

4 bleating   

v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说

参考例句：

• I don't like people who go around bleating out things like that. 我不喜欢跑来跑去讲那种蠢话的人。 来自辞典例句
• He heard the tinny phonograph bleating as he walked in. 他步入室内时听到那架蹩脚的留声机在呜咽。 来自辞典例句

5 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

6 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

7 dilemmas   

n.左右为难( dilemma的名词复数 )；窘境，困境

参考例句：

• They dealt with their dilemmas by mixing perhaps unintentionally an explosive brew. 他们――也许是无意地――把爆炸性的佐料混合在一起，以此来应付困难处境。 来自辞典例句
• Ten years later we encountered the same dilemmas in Vietnam. 十年后，我们又在越南遇到了同样进退两难的局面。 来自辞典例句

8 protagonist   

n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公

参考例句：

• The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
• He is the model for the protagonist in the play.剧本中的主人公就是以他为模特儿创作的！

9 implicit   

a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的

参考例句：

• A soldier must give implicit obedience to his officers. 士兵必须绝对服从他的长官。
• Her silence gave implicit consent. 她的沉默表示默许。

10 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

11 anonymity   

n.the condition of being anonymous

参考例句：

• Names of people in the book were changed to preserve anonymity. 为了姓名保密，书中的人用的都是化名。
• Our company promises to preserve the anonymity of all its clients. 我们公司承诺不公开客户的姓名。

12 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

13 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

14 pregnancies   

怀孕，妊娠( pregnancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• She's had three pregnancies in four years. 她在四年中怀孕叁次。

15 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

16 vexed   

adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• The conference spent days discussing the vexed question of border controls. 会议花了几天的时间讨论边境关卡这个难题。
• He was vexed at his failure. 他因失败而懊恼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

17 vexing   

adj.使人烦恼的，使人恼火的v.使烦恼( vex的现在分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• It is vexing to have to wait a long time for him. 长时间地等他真使人厌烦。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Lately a vexing problem had grown infuriatingly worse. 最近发生了一个讨厌的问题，而且严重到令人发指的地步。 来自辞典例句

18 axe   

n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减

参考例句：

• Be careful with that sharp axe.那把斧子很锋利，你要当心。
• The edge of this axe has turned.这把斧子卷了刃了。

19 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。