all shall be well all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well julian of norwich

Sunday, November 12, 2006

From the Imperial War Musuem, London:



Text of Poster:
"Why deliberate warfare against innocent civilians?

In their attempt to seize South Vietnam, the Viet Cong use terror to create chaos and fear - by killing and maiming villagers, teachers, students and health officials".

'Vietnam syndrome'
"Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam." Marshall McLuhan, 1975

claimed to be the most photographed war in the world, true? how do you judge something like that?

Catherine Leroy, one way trip to saigon, never shot a picture before she got to nam, award winning when she got there---


David Burnett, last photog hired by life, 1972, also worked for Time


Giles Canon, 1967

the images are simillary annonymous, but the paratrooper has a heroic edge, and his annonmyity is one infused with both honor and power--he is doing good work...the bleakness, desperation, and alost apoclyptic landscape, and then christian services, asks more questiosn then it answers (are they asking for protection, for forgiveness, are they seeking strenght, mercy, comfort; in 1972, after 27 years, and tens of thousands of soilders, is there anything that can be done to restore the landscape?

here done a year later, is less poetic, but more documentary, catholic, so the theology of the body, of martyrtdom and transubtation comes to the forefront



(what did the soilders think of this imagery)

that said, imagery is widely devergent, here is LeRoy, in 1967:

pieta, that qoutes the Eugene Smith photos of mercury poisioning


Huet, 1967, makes the most honourable, anonymous images of the war, here is an annuction, a dead paratrooper raises frmo the jungle

photos above can be found in peice unique
all of these come from profesional photjornalists, published mostly in middle american, centre right news publications, and now a gallery that sells them, which is underwritten by the AP,

even the army had its own fotogs, did the soilders, they must have?

(there was not one vietnam then, but thousands)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Baby, you caught the NAM sickness. Remind me in January to pass on a few books you'll like on the subject. (all those events shook up my tiny world view when I was really young. Actually they inserted a world view into my conciousness, where none had existed before)

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