Photographers In the Movies

At the moment I am laid up with one less toenail than yesterday.  After months of agony I finally had an ingrown toenail removed at the doctors.  Not very pleasant it has to be said and I am now hobbling about like a gorilla with no rhythm or coordination while I am being reduced to looking out the window, watching Sky+ stuff from months ago and going through photographs.  After a while I was put in mind of James Stewart in Rear Window, except in my case the only crimes I've viewed today are the noisy bin men shouting about nothing and a boy-racer with really shit taste in music driving at 100mph past the window every ten minutes.  However I started thinking about other photographers in films and tried to come up with ten so here they are in no particular order:

1. Rear Window - Hitchcock classic about an injured photographer who bares witness to a possible murder.  Exactly what you'd expect from Hitchcock, jet black comedic touches garnishing a tense thriller. 

2. Blow Up - 60s 'Swinging' London plays background and star of this very very period piece about...a photographer who may or may not have captured a murder on film (a pattern emerging?).  David Hemmings' character is quite obviously a David Baily homage but there's also a wee guest shot of a very young Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds and the 'tennis match' ending will make you soil yourself in confusion but it's all good.

3. Spiderman Trilogy - Peter Parker is Spiderman...and a photographer.  That is all.

4. Full Metal Jacket - Stanley Kuberick walks us through the lives of young G.I.s as they prepare for the front line both as soldiers, and in the case of our lead, as a photojournalist for the Stars and Stripes magazine.  It plays out in two parts, the training at base camp in America before moving to the wars destructive core in Vietnam.  All this and the cast and crew never left England.

5. Kids - Although this doesn't have any photographers in it, it was written and directed by Larry Clark.  Clark's 'Tulsa' book included sex, drugs and gun wounds and just so happened to be a documentation of his life at that time.  The movie revolves around the discovery that a young boy with a prolific sex life has AIDs and his infected ex-girlfriend and friend are trying to find him before he infects the whole world!  Harrowing and bleak but probably the best film on this list if it weren't for...

6. The Public Eye - Joe Pesci excels as a photographer of the Weegee mould.  Developing his plates in the trunk of his car as he scours New York's underworld at night, he is in danger of becoming a victim of one of his subjects.  Noir awsomeness.

7. Harrison's Flowers - An American photographer, believed to have been killed in a bomb blast in Eastern Europe is tracked down by his wife with the help of other photographers.  I thought it was a true story but it turns out it's not.  The most annoying thing about this film is the 'photographers' all seem to have taken their camera lessons from 'Commando' era Arnnie.  Have they not heard of camera-shake?  And a Nikon is not a gun!  I wanted to like this film but it's just not that good.

8. Backbeat - German photographer Astrid Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe's love affair are central to the this telling of the story of the 'Lost Beatle".  It's a great film and Ian Hart is fantastic as the caustic John Lennon. 
9. The Killing Fields - An American photographer goes back to the horrors of Cambodia to find his guide and friend.  Heart breaking but well worth seeing.  This film was on TV the night my little sister was born...just saying.
10. Apocalypse Now - And finlly we finnish on one of the best screen performances by a man and his 35mm.  Dennis Hopper is amazing in this film and if you watch 'Heart of Darkness' it's hard to tell where the character stops a Hopper starts.


Well I'll need to go and do something else as my butt has fell asleep and my eyes have gone square.  Damn it I forgot about Pecker...