Originating as a documentary for the BBC, Shooting Robert King is a fascinating and often dark look into the world of war photography and journalism. Despite being a hotch-potch of footage shot over 15 years, Richard Parry’s film is coherent, well paced and ultimately riveting.
Robert King was a man who never seemed destined for a successful career in photography. The film sees a 24 year old King arriving in war-torn Sarajevo in 1993, with no idea who the key figures are in the conflict or why people are shooting at each other. A fellow freelancer informs him that maybe it’s not the best idea to wear combat trousers in a war zone, and within a few days his agency have fired him because his shots are ‘under exposed and out of focus’. Despite this, he has big ambitions – a Pulitzer by 28 and international front covers. He feels he has been put on earth to communicate human suffering.
Snap forward to 2008 and we see King on a deer hunt back in his native Tennessee. He’s older, and much, much wiser. Years of war zone experience has jaded him. The film utilises this later footage to great effect, filling in gaps between war zones in Chechnya, Iraq and Yugoslavia and providing contrast between the younger King’s naivety and idealism and his older self’s cynicism.
The documentary doesn’t attempt to focus on the catalysts for these conflicts, or even their moral implications. Perhaps it is trying to allow us into the head of a war photographer – they must see past rights and wrongs and simply report what is going on. At one point he discusses treading over corpses after an explosion in Iraq, stating he recognises the scattered body parts as people, but all he can think about is how to frame them in his shots.
There are difficult scenes to endure, some in King’s excellent work, and some in the footage taken while following him around. The film doesn’t choose to linger on the carnage, but it highlights that war certainly is hell.
King is mostly likeable but clearly his experiences have left him a changed, and somewhat damaged man. He’s an intriguing subject to document, and the film should be interesting to anyone, especially those with an interest in journalism. Shooting Robert King is engrossing from start to finish.
© BRWC 2010.
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