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.

I had such high hopes for this to work. The very title makes a huge promise, and it partly fulfills it, however You might find the Person not as charming as She thinks She is.

There's a dissonance between first two sequences of the film and the whole rest. Whatch these two. These are amazing - there the Camera really is the Person. The whole rest is pedestrian, with too much 'in your face' ideology and self indulgence.

Kirsten Johnson's CAMERAPERSON is a documentary collage lovingly pieced together from outtakes of the many documentaries she's worked on in her long career as, well, a cameraperson. Intermingled with these outtakes are snippets from Johnson's personal life: playing with her twin toddlers, poignant flashes of her mother succumbing to Alzheimer's, sweet moments with her father & the twins at her parents' home in Beaux Arts, WA. In the vein of Koyaanisqatsi or Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, the seemingly unrelated clips are woven together until patterns begin to emerge. In the Q&A afterward, Ms. Johnson said that in most every Q&A an audience member discovers a new pattern or theme--pointing to an editing process that is both intentional & subconscious. The pacing & structure of the movie invokes the essence of fleeting memories. As an audience, we are given a behind the scenes look at what it takes to make documentaries. In a clip that illustrates the difficult balance between objective observer & compassionate storyteller, we watch a Bosnian toddler attempting to play with an axe. As his tiny fingers come perilously close to the blade, the audience cringes & we hear an off-camera exclamation of "Oh, Jesus!" from Johnson. An intimate portrait of a cameraperson, illustrating the delicate balance between the personal & the professional.

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.

Much has been said about this film. It's not your typical documentary on a specific issue or topic. It's also not a completely straight-forward autobiography, but I do think it's some type of autobiography that, while unique, still very much reveals something about the subject. The subject in question here is Kirsten Johnson, and all of the images and footage chosen to be shown to us do tell us something about her. Despite not really talking about her own life or only appearing on camera for a few seconds, the images and her interactions with those around her do give us a glimpse as to who this person is. That is why in that respect it is an autobiography of some sort, the type that shows rather than tells. It's a fascinating picture through and through and highly recommended.