After reading Linda Williams' "Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History, and the New Documentary" and Zoe Druick's "Documenting false history: Errol Morris and Mr. Death," I began to think about the ways in which the use of photography has evolved since the early or mid-19th century, depending on which process you consider the "first" true photographic image technique.
It is no surprise that during the same time, the world of painting began to take major strides in alternate modes and methods of representation: by the late 19th century, the avant-garde art movement had taken hold, specifically in Paris, where certain artists began to be rejected by the academically sanctioned Paris Salon.
The invention of photography undoubtedly threatened the livelihood of many artists; there suddenly became a new market for the production of portraits, particularly for patrons who had the means to pay for photographs. These new "mirrors of reality" were not only faster than the painter, but also, far more precise in representing the world. The artist was challenged to produce new styles of imagery in order to keep their endeavors alive.
By the late 19th century, Edward Muybridge had conducted his experiment with stereoscopic cameras to capture the movement of a galloping horse, one of the first attempts to create a moving image, and that which has acquired the legend that Muybridge was trying to prove that while running, a horse will have all four hooves off of the ground simultaneously. Muybridge's experiment was successful, and he produced the first accurate imagery of a running horse, which affirmed his belief and suddenly changed the misconceptions of the running horse.
Muybridge's footage of the galloping horse is, arguably, one of the first cinematographic documentaries and demonstrates the objective qualities of the camera. However, as photography and cinematography have evolved since this time, it has become increasingly evident that the camera is merely a tool that can be manipulated to achieve the visions of the photographer.
Today, as Williams points out, the altering of photographs through digital means is a common practice, and these altered images have become a convention of modern media. Furthermore, digital photography has escalated the quantity of images in our society exponentially. The overwhelming number of images we encounter everyday has resulted in the banality of this medium. Williams quotes Anton Kaes: "The sheer mass of historical images transmitted by today's media weakens the link between public memory and personal experience" (10). As Williams contends, we can no longer trust photographs for implicit truths, or mirrors of reality, but rather, we must "deploy the many facets of these mirrors to reveal the seduction of lies" (20).
Similarly, Zoe Druick argues that documentary (specifically regarding that of Errol Morris) has become a construction of the filmmaker, and is no longer (or never was) a mirror of reality. Morris himself has explicitly stated that his work is no attempt towards cinema verite (Druick, 207). Druick claims, "To consider the work of Errol Morris, then, is unavoidably to enter the realm of philosophy. …he has refashioned the received truths of documentary styles and subject matter … to be a sophisticated interpreter of documentary's tradition terrain: truth and reality" (208). In this way, Morris' interpretation of truth and reality is similar to the Allen & Gomery Realist theory of film history: empirical evidence requires the interpretation of the historian.
In this world, a myriad of imagery surrounds us on a daily basis, and it has become necessary to receive them with critical eyes. Interpretation is not only required of the historian or the documentary filmmaker, but the audience as well. The camera is not a mirror of reality, but rather, a mirror of the photographer's perception of reality.
Kelly Bogel
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