Cameraperson

Kirsten Johnson, an American cinematographer, directs this documentary using footage she has collected during the past thirty years.

This film's most praiseworthy attribute is its uniqueness. In snippets that last only a few minutes, each little story (over twenty of them, many of them revisited during the film) say so much in such a short amount of time.

The subjects vary as well: the effects of ethnic cleansing and gang rapes in Bosnia, the troubles relating to Al-Qaeda, a heinous crime in small-town, Texas. Johnson also focuses on troublesome domestic situations in her home country including her mother's fading health and mind.

While there seem to be many stories, they all seem to relate to a common theme of tragedy whether it be at the worldly or the personal level. Johnson has the great skill of giving the viewer just enough information to feel empathy but without being overwhelmed and numbed. In other words, she brings the viewer to her own deep level of humanity.

Cameraperson (2016) is a documentary, directed by Kirsten Johnson, about her own career. Johnson has directed--or done the cinematography--for many documentaries that certainly appear to be extremely interesting. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any of them, so I can't comment directly about her work. She calls Cameraperson an autobiography, but I don't think that's really accurate. We do learn a bit about Johnson and her family in the movie, but mostly we see a patchwork quilt of her work. (I say patchwork quilt because Johnson has presented short segments of her films in seemingly random order.)

Michael Moore--who appears in one of the segments--is a documentary film director who is always in the center of his movies. However, Johnson doesn't seem to appear much in her own films. (One exception is a movie she filmed in Bosnia. She returned five years later to interview the same people, and they treated her like an old friend.)

Johnson is talented, so a short segment of each film whets your appetite. However, each segment is too short to be satisfying. Also, it's hard to learn why she makes documentaries. Is it just what she does, or does she have a political or social agenda? Johnson doesn't tell us, so we have to speculate.

We saw this film at the excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY. It will work almost as well on the small screen.

Kirsten Johnson's 2016 visual memoir. Johnson, a camera woman (or person to be fair) who has worked for years on documentaries compiles a series of scenes from the films she's shot to deliver a personal travelogue which ranges in locations as Gitmo, Africa, Bosnia & even her own homestead featuring unique glimpses of people like Bosnian survivors of their genocide from the recent past, child birth in Africa, & even her own young twin children at an early age. Perhaps one of the lingering moments from the film is footage from her mother (who passed away from Alzheimer's complications) still alive & while not being mentally vibrant, the image of her still walking among the living (at a time when she had long passed) is heartfelt & gripping. Nothing resembling a traditional narrative can be found here but if you're in interested in the visual mind of an artist & where they were at a given time, this is one for you.

I was lucky enough to watch this on the big screen which may have given me a bias to my sheer adoration for this film.

I was moved. I feel this captured the sheer power of cinema to give insight into ways of life we have never seen or experienced. The wonderful eye of Kirsten Johnson guides us through her experiences. Her empathy bleeds through the screen and give you a truly breathtaking documentary.

It gives you a moment to detach yourself from the world. And look at it through someone else's eye.

A documentary that isnt worried about teaching you explicit facts, but more letting you empathise and wonder about this world and all of us who reside here.

I captivated from the very first shot to the end of the credits. I will watch this again.

Kirsten Johnson has been working in the camera department and as cinematographer, producer and director for decades; her first credit, according to the Internet Movie Database, was in 1996. This movie is a series of excerpts from the movies she has handled the camera on, all over the world, from Afghanistan to Serbia, to Brooklyn, to her family. She calls the results onscreen an album, and a betrayal: that you may have someone's permission when filming, but later.... in some ways it is a betrayal: particularly when she films her mother in the grip of Alzheimer's.

But even an album requires organizing. Even if you include everything, the order of each sequence's inclusion affects its meaning; that's the point of the Kuleshov Effect. So what does this movie add up to, what does it say, what does it mean?

That is a question that can only be answered by the audience, the often unremarked component of cinema. A good film maker, a good editor, can often estimate what that result is, but only the audience can say what it is. Theory and practice: try it out and see what the result is. It's experimental cinema. The creator may have an opinion, but, well, at that point, it's no longer Miss Johnson's movie.