4 h 10 m, 1 nov 2021 ano - MINAMATA INSIDE IMAGING Photojournalists defend ‘cancelled’ Eugene Smith film

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FROM INSIDE IMAGING:

Photojournalists defend ‘cancelled’ Eugene Smith film

More Australian photojournalists have criticised US media company, MGM, for ‘burying’ the North American release of Minamata, a feature film starring Johnny Depp as legendary photojournalist, W. Eugene Smith.

Celebrated photojournalist, Stephen Dupont, was the first to bravely stick his head above the parapet and support the film’s release despite #MeToo-style allegations against Depp. He’s since been joined by fellow Australians Jack Picone and David Dare Parker, along with Smith’s son, Kevin Eugene Smith, who said: ‘It’s absolutely shameful that MGM has acquired the rights to this very important film but not released it.’

It’s not entirely clear why MGM ‘buried’ the film, which is a dramatisation of Smith’s last official assignment documenting the mercury poisoning of a Japanese village committed by the Chisso Corporation. While MGM hasn’t addressed the seemingly endless delay Minamata director, Andrew Levitas, claims MGM senior management attributed it to Depp’s ‘personal issues’. The actor is embroiled in a rather public marriage breakdown with actress Amber Heard, who called out for actor for alleged domestic abuse resulting in Depp suing her for defamation. It’s worth noting there are no criminal charges or convictions against Depp, and many feel the messy marriage breakdown ain’t worthy of the #MeToo movement.

But forget criminal charges or a body of evidence, as this is cancel culture we’re talking about. An allegation is all it takes to have the Hollywood elite wincing at the thought of potentially enabling yet another abuser’s alleged actions. And so North American audiences, one of the biggest entertainment markets, cannot view this biopic about this legendary photojournalist.

The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) has now published a series of articles interviewing photojournalists about Minamata, and the MGM controversy. The WSWS is news publication aiming to ‘unite the international working class’, and is founded by the International Committee of the Fourth International, founded in 1938 to revive Trotskyist revolutionary ideology.

At first it seems like an odd battle for the WSWS to have adopted. But it makes more sense after viewing the movie, as Smith embeds himself into what’s essentially a working class struggle against a powerful corporation. And this theme poetically carries on as the mighty MGM buries the indie film.

It’s a decent flick sharing a worthwhile story. Depp effortlessly plays Smith as a hardened yet tortured photojournalist, who self medicates his way from dingy New York jazz bars to Japan to help expose the horrors of industrial poisoning. Photojournalists – or even photographers, for that matter – are rarely the lead subject of a feature film, and it has been done with care and accuracy according to the seasoned photojournalists who watched the film.

Dupont felt Depp’s acting ‘captured the personality of Smith really well’, ‘I can imagine Smith being that kind of dark, broody, at times arrogant kind of personality’. Regarding the film being buried, Dupont called it ‘complete bullshit’, ‘the big picture here is the film, its story and the victims of the mercury poisoning. MGM shouldn’t be crossing that boundary’.

Picone, a Bangkok-based photographer who has covered the Rwandan genocide and other conflicts across the globe, is familiar with having worked censored. As the co-founder of Australia’s Reportage festival, Destination NSW refused to have public projections of images in Sydney due to them being ‘too distressing’ for an all-ages audience. Additionally, he notes how a documentary was made in 2019 about his return to Rwanda, and the filmmakers haven’t been able to screen it anywhere due to mistaken concerns it’s ‘about an old white guy in Africa telling his story’.

With this sensitivity fresh in his mind, Picone feared Minamata ‘might smack of the great white saviour going into an Asian culture to save them, but it was nothing like that’.

‘As you know, the original Minamata story was a collaboration, and the film shows that it was really Aileen [Smith’s Japanese wife and assistant/love interest in the movie] who approached Smith and gave him the idea to pursue this story when his career was receding and in a difficult place,’ he said. ‘These sorts of collaborations are the best because they bring different cultures and sets of ideas to the table so the story can be developed in a more three-dimensional way.’

Speaking generally about industrial poisoning, Picone highlights how corporations are using the same lies, greed and nefarious behaviour as Chisso to ultimately protect their bottom line. He recalls an assignment he shot from 2002 in Sulawesi, Indonesia, for German magazine, Mare.

[Long Article continued via the links below]

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