Re: 'Restrepo' Filmmaker Tim Hetherington Killed in Libya

Restrepo is a great documentary.  While I realize that the mere act of 
documenting something has an effect on it, he and Junger did as good a job as I 
think humanely possible to let the camera and its subjects tell the story.    


And without meaning to sound trite, it appears that he died while honoring his 
calling/vocation.  


Mike F.  





________________________________
From: Johne Cook <[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, April 20, 2011 1:49:48 PM
Subject: [DADL-OT] 'Restrepo' Filmmaker Tim Hetherington Killed in Libya



'Restrepo' Filmmaker Tim Hetherington Killed in Libya
By Brent Lang
Created 04/20/2011 - 10:12
Published:April 20, 2011 @ 10:12 am
"Restrepo"  co-director Tim Hetherington has been killed while covering the  
political uprising in Libya, his publicist confirmed to TheWrap. 
He was 40, according to his publicist.
There are conflicting reports about the immediate circumstances  surrounding 
 Hetherington's death, but it is known that he was hit by an  RPG round early 
Thursday morning. 
The Oscar-nominated documentarian's colleague Chris Hondros may also  have been 
killed, but some outlets are reporting that he remains alive,  albeit gravely 
injured [1].
Hetherington's friend, photographer Andre Liohn, broke the news via Facebook:
"Sad news Tim Hetherington died in Misrata now when covering the front  line. 
Chris Hondros is in a serious status. Michel Brown and Guy are  wounded but 
fine."
Also read: 'Restrepo' Directors: Why It's All War ... No Politics Allowed [2]
According to the Business Insider [3],  Hetherington was tweeting from Misrata 
shortly before he was killed,  and described heavy fighting taking place outside 
the city. 
"In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. 
No sign of NATO," Hetherington tweeted.
Hetherington regularly contributed his photo-journalism to "Vanity Fair." 
Co-directed by author Sebastian Junger and released in 2010,  
"Restrepo" chronicled the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers  stationed at 
a remote Afghanistan outpost.
The film, his first as a director,  emerged from a Vanity Fair assignment. 
In an interview with TheWrap [4] last year, Hetherington said he did not want 
the film to have an overt political message. 
"This is a visceral, experiential war film. And we just think there’s a  massive 
need, at this critical juncture, for people to put their  politics aside in the 
lobby of the theater, and go into a dark room for  93 minutes to experience and 
share what these guys go through, and in  some ways digest it and honor it," 
Hetherington said.
In a rave review in the New York Observer [5],  Sara Vilkomerson wrote: "...a 
documentary so real and unflinching (and  at times deeply frightening) that it's 
hard to watch, but it is one of  those film experiences that you'll feel glad 
about getting through."
In addition to an Oscar nomination, "Restrepo" was awarded the Grand Jury Prize 
at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
Born in Liverpool, UK, Hetherington studied literature at Oxford  University and 
later returned to college to study photojournalism. 
Throughout his career, Hetherington reported on international politics,  war and 
global poverty, living in West Africa for eight years. 
He turned his experiences in Africa into a 2009 book, "Long Story Bit  By Bit: 
Liberia Retold," which drew on photographs and interviews to  convey Liberia's 
history.
Likewise, Hetherington turned the experience of being embedded with a  military 
unit for "Restrepo" into a book, "Infidel," that was released  in 2010.  
His move from straight photojournalism to a mixture of photos, video  and other 
media, Hetherington told TheWrap, came in response to a  changing media 
landscape.
"The media is changing now," he said. "The old media idea is very  segmented, 
but we're at a point now where people can move into different  forms.  Sebastian 
has written a book, I have a book.  We had two  Nightline pieces, two Vanity 
Fair articles.  I have a set of images that  go around the world in an art 
gallery kind of installation piece. Each  of them have different audiences, and 
they kind of each elucidate the  subject in a slightly different way, and ping 
off of each other. We’re  entering this new media sphere where those things 
work, whereas in the  past there wasn’t the platform to do this kind of work.
"I think inevitably we’ve reached a point in the media where if you  go 
somewhere, it seems natural that you might take an array of different  tools. My 
kit bag is a field recorder, and  a video recorder, and  a still camera."
In addition to his work on "Restrepo," Hetherington was a cameraman on  
"Liberia: an Uncivil War" (2004) and "The Devil Came on Horseback"  (2007).
In his conversation with TheWrap, he summed up his (and Junger's)  approach 
simply: "We have covered many, many stories in our time, doing  our work.  Our 
job is to report."

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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