英字听写制作 : @VincentVCS Transcripted and subtitled by @VincentVCS
He is
a mystery
You know, I don't know
what makes him take to the extent that he takes
He's a loner, I think, to a great extent
And I think, you know, sometimes you have to be
to work that well
and to
give so much of yourself
It's hard to
divide your attention, your emotion, your energy
I think you have to be single minded
And he is
It seems too graphic and unemotional
I would prefer those grieving people
For this double page here?
-Yes, for the big page - Okay
There's already a great deal of misery in it
I like this sad figure walking through
the streets full of destruction
Fits perfect
And Goma, one million refugees, thousands died
and couldn't be buried in the volcanic soil
There were piles of corpses
Right, the piles of corpses
It'd be great There are the piles
Okay
That looks fantastic
- You think we should use this one? - I'd enlarge it
This is also a terrific picture
- The corpses being dumped - Maybe we should put it here
- Have it enlarged - Okay, fine
Can you tell that the corpses being dumped aren't in Africa?
You don't have to see the corpses
You can substitute them with this
Here you feel like you're being shown some scene in Africa
It starts with Africa, and you think it's an African horror trip
But his idea is worldwide horror
- It zooms in again - Then there's the head
- Then there's that poor guy - Looks terrific
Exactly Then we'll have a look at it
Comma Now it's shorter
After the Berlin Wall fell, wars changed
It was no longer nation against nation
but people against people
Instead of high-tech weapons, rifles
-and machetes - James Nachtwey
the world's most famous war photographer
has portrayed these new conflicts and
victims in a way nobody else ever could
How many people now are missing here in the village
and how many people were killed
Twelve
Can we please go down there?
The decision to become a photographer
was to become a war photographer
I made that decision in the early 70's
during Vietnam
The pictures that were coming out of Vietnam were showing us
what was really happening on the ground level
and it was in contradiction
to what our political leaders and military leaders were telling us
They were straightforward documentary images
A powerful inditement of the war
how unjust it was, how cruel it was
simply by showing what was happening there
And I was very affected by the pictures and
when I finally made the decision of what I wanna to do with my life
that's what I decided I wanna to do was follow in that tradition
And it took me a long time before I was able to
feel confident inside myself
that I could do this job
Before I
try to convince other people
I have to first convince myself
And in 1980
I woke up one night
with a very clear idea that
now I've learned everything I can learn
and now is the time to go to New York
and try to become a magazine photographer
a war photographer
I really felt that I was ready to do this
to do foreign assignments and go to war zones
and in fact I began to get work right away
It was a time with very high emotions and great excitement
I really felt I was witnessing history
And witnessing history not from an academic point of view
not from a distance
but really what happens to people, ordinary people
in the course of history
And this was, to me, the most exciting, most worthwhile experience
and exactly the kind of experience why I became a photographer
That's what I wanna to get across
And there was danger involved
and there was also, you know
there was a sense of adventure
and facing danger and
feeling people's authentic emotions
In a way, it was a lot like a theater
but instead of being in the audience, I was on the stage
and the script was been written
minute by minute as it went along
And you had to, kind of understand
anticipate and connect with it
emotionally and intellectually what was going on
so you could follow it
I also had to learn, you know, in taking pictures, how to
develop a personal vision
How to
express my own feelings about it
In order to do that, I had to get in touch with my own feelings
And it was kind of...
through photography, through the discipline of the frame
I learned about the world
It became the way which I discovered the world
And it also became the way which I discovered myself
We got masks
Yes
It just stops the smell
OK, I don't need a mask
I think there are a hundred bodies in there
When you're inside
the forensic scientists and some anthropologists
will be there with you
They will identify themselves
What we want you to do is coming through there
The smell is pretty bad just there
So just prepare yourselves for it
There's a room at the end
Do not photograph in the other room
OK, we're now cleared
that we think it wrong that you should photograph in there
And the bullet holes are your proof or what
Well, like
other evidence so we are shooting there
They said they are doing headcounts, means, you know
And they have anthropologists to match bones to bodies
Tell me the time
Oh, alright
You got a mask?
No, I don't need one
Pretty gross
Thank you
I came to journalism sort of by accident
And I entered journalism
because I thought it would be fun
I thought it would be cool
I thought it would a great job
to be a war correspondent, a foreign correspondent
Travel, see the world, be in the middle of things
you know
Oh, boy
But then, there are certain stories that you do
and they make you
think again what are you doing and why you are doing it
And they make you realize that
this is serious and important and you
by the way you
cover a story, by the way you tell a story
define the way the world sees that story
So you better do it right
you better know what you are doing
I mean, I deeply deeply believe that
people even now are saying
even now, today
when they see the mass graves
you know, even now they want to doubt
Oh my goodness, somebody just threw flowers
Look look, behind you
"Please, don't," I said
"My brother is deaf and speechless"
But they threw him down from the truck,
took his money and killed him
They cut off my other brother's arm with a bread knife
They tore my uncle's son from his arms
But he wouldn't let go
So they shot him in the head, and the child fell on the ground
They gave me two minutes time,
and they held an automatic weapon at my neck
They wanted money
Goodbye
In a war
the normal codes of civilized behavior are suspended
It would be unthinkable in so called normal life
to go into someone's home
where the family is grieving over the death of the loved one
and spend long moments photographing them
it's simply wouldn't have been done
Those
pictures could not have been made
unless I was accepted by the people I'm photographing
It's simply impossible
to photograph moments such as those
without the complicity of the people I'm photographing
without the fact that they welcomed me
that they
accepted me
they wanted me to be there
They understand that
a stranger who's come there with a camera
to show the rest of the world what is happening to them
gives them a voice in the outside world
that they otherwise wouldn't have
They realized that they are
they're victims of some kind of injustice
of some kind of
unnecessary violence
And by allowing me there to photograph
they are making their own appeal to the outside world
and to everyone's sense of right and wrong
I try my best to approach people with respect
I want them
to see that I have respect for them and the situation they're in
I don't like to move too fast
I don't like to speak too loudly
I want to be very open
In my approach,
I want them feel I'm opening my own heart towards them
and I want them to be aware of that
And people do sense it
They...with very few words, sometimes with no words at all
There are war photographers
who are only able to endure the horror
of what they've seen, experienced and escaped
like in Vietnam
by going with the soldiers to the same brothels
and bars and drinking the same whisky
Others have become cynical
Jim is a remarkably uncynical person
which is all the more remarkable
Because most people have seen a lot less misery and suffering
Lonely because
his experience sets him apart from his colleagues and others
He has become a different person
as a result of those 25 years
The most incomprehensible
situation I ever witnessed was Rwanda
where...
I mean, we don't really know how many people died
estimated half a million to a million
They were killed with very primitive weapons
clubs and rocks and machetes
face to face
And I saw some massacre sites
And I just do not understand how
people can do that to each other
We can inspire such fear and such hatred
This is beyond my understanding, really
It's very difficult to get over that
When the Hutu army and militia were finally defeated
hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled into nearby Tanzania or Zaire
And cholera epidemics
wiped through the refuge population in Goma
And tens of thousands of people were been wiped out
in short order
It just swept through the camps
And I realized that
many of the people I was photographing
might had been the very ones who committed the massacres
that I had witnessed just a few weeks before
And it was
like taking the express elevator to hell
While we talked about that horror
in order to comprehend what we saw
the absolute inferno of people
who were dead, dying and vomiting,
never-ending lines of people waiting outside the first-aid tents
Jim said almost nothing
Jim said hello
He talked about some organizational details
Then he said, "I'm going to bed"
And while we needed beer to recover
from what we'd seen that day
Jim had one or two glasses of water before going to bed
Then he got up early the next day to head out alone
I began to do
documentary photographs of poverty
which is very wide spread in Indonesia
Those terrible poverty
These are people who have jobs, raise families
It's very much a workers' neighborhood
But this is what they
have found themselves in
along the railway tracks
These are not drug addicts or drop outs
They work, they try to raise their families
They came in from the countryside looking for a better life
and they simply can't afford normal housing
So they built shacks of abandoned wood and plastic
where there's no rent
- Good morning, Mister - Good morning
While I was doing this reportage
I discovered a man who had one arm and one leg
He'd been run over by a train seven years ago on a drunken night
and somehow managed to survive
He was living with his wife and four children in the gravel
between railway tracts
I could see that he
was very loving towards his children
and they also loved him in return
and he was trying his best to keep his family together
I spent quite a bit of time
documenting the life of this family
For me, the early 80's were characterized by my move to New York
I was a photo editor for GEO
I'd worked for SPIEGEL before that
and I had an opportunity
to take over the photography department
at the New York office of STERN
That was in 1982
It was the first time that Nachtwey
came to STERN's office with a portfolio
and that led to a friendship
a love affair
Both of us had an idea
what that New York situation was supposed to lead to
Nachtwey wanted to make a name for himself
He was very bright
and determined
His mind was focused
like flight routes
no winding roads
There was one distinct, straight, narrow, stony path
he had decided to take
Of course, at times I wished it was
a warmer, closer, more intense relationship
But his work was of great importance
I'll do it
I'll do it with my pictures
I'll convince people with my pictures
Nachtwey came back from Nicaragua
He was relaxed and happy
He brought me a necklace made of shells
He put it around my neck, and I thought that was great
I remember the first time I met him
His hair was parted, his jeans were creased
his shirt was immaculate
And amidst all that dust and chaos
stood this man I'd never seen before taking his pictures
He was in no hurry like the others
He was somehow calm
as suddenly
South African photographer Ken Oosterbroek was killed next to him
Normally, two sorts of journalists are hit:
the ones on their first assignment
and the ones who have been at it too long
and think they're bulletproof
Jim is in danger of seeing himself as bulletproof
in danger of pushing his luck once too often
As someone who is quite reserved
he needs that kick, that adventure,
that flow of adrenalin and the fear of dying
in order to feel alive
Jim is at his best in the most extreme situation
That's it
He keeps on pushing those limits
Tough
Tough, tough, tough
It's also very difficult to talk to Nachtwey
about the insane situations he has narrowly escaped
It's excruciating the way some photographers and journalists
never stop talking about what they've experienced
With Nachtwey, however
you have to drag everything out of him
You really have to beg him
and, even then, he tries to avoid making the impression
that he's bragging, showing off
When he returned from an assignment
and I wanted to grab him
and say, "Tell me about it. How was it?"
No, first he had to develop the pictures
and then look at them
I don't know where he kept everything or where he keeps it
because the photo material alone, the pictures
are only a fraction of what he has seen, felt, smelled and hear
He has his own library of suffering in his head
What were you thinking of? Don't you want to talk about it?
There are many children working in this dump
on the outskirts of Jakarta
Rather than going to school, they spent their day
picking through garbage
Smells are horrible
the ground under your feet is like some kind of quagmire
I wore a pair of rubber boots
the people who worked there wear
rubber sandals
I find it incredible that people are forced to work this way
in order to make
about 85 cents U. S. a day
And I began by exploring the conditions of poverty
in a country which
had been celebrated in recent years
for this kind of economic revival
I realized this economic revival must
be affecting a very small percentage of population
And actually there was this ongoing
kind of
enormous, massive people living in conditions of dire poverty
And indeed that's what I discovered
I was
very moved, almost shocked
by the superhuman level of emotion
that was expressed at the moment of Suharto's resignation
And I wanted to find out what was behind that passion
and what could create that level of
emotion
among so many people
And I realized it had to come from
a way been lifted, the way of repression
a glimmer of hope for some kind of social and economic equality
that had been denied by so many people for so long
My mother hates the idea of me being a war cameraman
Deep down she's just waiting for the phone call from
from the office to say
"are you Desmond's mother?", etc.
She always thinks the trouble follows me wherever I go
considering I'm not an Indonesian
And I came here in two months later
Suharto resigned, the country was on fire
thousands of people been killed
And she calls me up and says what's going on
"You just waste me taking
similar time to look what's happened"
It's a very competitive business
the most dramatic pictures are always the ones get used
And there's a lot of people in the business
who are very
brutal in the way they operate
in terms of they are to get the worst of the worst of the worst
and they will not...
they are the people who do not help
They say "I'm sorry, I'm a journalist,
I'm not part of this"
And I say but you are part of it
I think a lot of people would
be quite happy for that man to be killed
so they get the particular picture they want
It is a sick business to a certain extent
I've got no idea
I've got no idea why we are doing this
Anything on the radio
Nothing
All quiet
Which one do you listen to
All of Jakarta
Yeah, all of Jakarta
Nothing's happening
OK
It was a Sunday
a week after the clashes between the students and the troops
I got a call from Jim
at 10 o'clock, Sunday morning, saying,
"there's a problem
there's something going on here
I don't know what it is
there's a church on fire
these people on the streets with swords and machetes, you name it
something's gonna go down"
As it happened half an hour latter
they cought three Ambonese men
they killed them on the spot
with swords and cut them to pieces
And they found what they were chasing one...
the fourth one through the streets
Jim was basically with them for
the entire chase through the streets
He's got black and white pictures of this guy running with the
this crazy mob behind him
blood streaming from his head
They were playing with him
They were playing with this guy
They're torturing...
like little kids playing with a puppy
And Jim basically got down on his hands and knees three times
pleading for
to say to them there's no reason for you to kill this man
just because he is Ambonese
But they didn't listen
They didn't listen to him
They killed him anyway
But for that twenty minutes he was on his hands and knees praying
saying please don't kill this man
there's no need
If the situation does get that brutal and that nasty
a lot of people would move away
A for their own safety
But I think in a way as an instinctive thing to say
"I'm not part of it"
Whereas Jim is always...
He is always right in the middle of it
He is always part of it
He always has been, and he always will be
And his pictures tell that
And I think that's...
that's why he was on his hands and knees that day
It was because he was right in the middle
I know friends of mine who would...
they weren't next to this guy when he was getting killed
they would standing on a bridge or in a building or
just shooting from a distance
And when you... when it's...
when if you come up close in personal
That's...
That's Jim
That's very important
to stay centered inside yourself
Because you have to make a lot of
very important decisions very quickly
You have to stay clam and you can't
get too excited and panic about things
I mean, these are all very basic
things that probably even
I shouldn't have mentioned
I just try and focus
previsualize situations that I might get in and
run them through my mind
I think it's very subconscious how I
prepare myself mentally
Every situation is different than the next
and every one requires that you
learn these things all over again
every time you go out
And a lot of it was instinct
a lot of it was knowledge and
absorbing information
and comming to some kind of
innate understanding
of events
Fear is not...
What's important is how you deal with it
it would be like asking a marathon runner if they feel pain
It's not a matter of
whether you feel it
it's how you manage it
It could happen to any of us at any time
And we all know that this is
an distinct possibility every time we go out every day
It's what we face
It comes with the territory
It's part of the job we've
known that from the beginning
Nobody feel sorry for themselves
It's just, you know
part of it
I think you're in the right track
I feel that James Nachtwey's pictures
possess the precision of a war surgeon
He hates to hear that
He doesn't want to be compared to a war surgeon
because everyone will then say
"Aha, a cold-hearted war surgeon"
It just seems like a touch light overall
-I agree -You'd have to bring out the full drama
The other thing I could do is just
give a light burn around the head here
And maybe this area as well
When you get it overall darker
keep this area as it is now
-Don't let that grow darker -Grow any darker, OK
He is unrelentless when dealing with people and situations
This very old-fashioned
very unmodern characteristic
makes him, at the same time, so untypical, so fascinating
OK
I agree Thank you
Good luck
I think this work pretty good, too
Oh, very good idea
You'll see more of the forms of destruction
Do you think you can get more out of the sky
Definitely
Looking very good
I would try one
Will you even get more out of the sky
Good for it, I'll tell you
You see what I mean?
The sky makes all the difference
I feel as if I've spent
at least half of my career working at Africa
in one context or another
One of those contexts
certainly the saddest, the most tragic,
the most destructive had been famines
Primarily these famines were not
natural famines
They were a product of war
It's conceivably the oldest
weapon of massive extermination known to man
It's very primitive
and yet it's very effective
It's important for readers of publications to understand
that most of the pictures they see of famine victims
are taken in feeding center, are taken
in places where food has been sent
We are not taking pictures of people
who are starving
and not trying to help them
We are not turning back on them and walking away
It's more difficult to get
publications to focus on
issues that are more critical
It's...
never been easy
and I think in the last few years it's got more and more difficult
As the society becomes
more obsessed with entertainment and celebrity and fashion
Advertisers are tired of
having their products
displayed next to images of human tragedy
They feel it somehow detracts from sale ability of their products
The main purpose of my work is to appeal in the mass media
It's not so much that I want my pictures to be
looked upon as art objects
as it is a form of communication
Whatever I did
that it accomplished something
I'm glad for it
But, you know, there's always so much more to do
I've never felt
complete
I've never felt satisfied
I wouldn't say I could use the word "happy about it"
because it's always involved
other people's tragedy and other people's misfortune
The best there's kind of grim satisfaction that
perhaps I've brought some attention
focus people's attention on these problems
Perhaps it's brought some relief
But it's shifting sand, it keeps moving
Where's this again, where were you
Many places
The chaingang was Alabama
Some of the police works New Orleans
Some of these New York
Some of these Los Angeles
I think this is one of the most powerful walls
And cause it's home it's
Yeah
at the U.S.
Its' brutality
It sounds like these were wrong everywhere else in the world
And everything's OK here
We have our own problem
Exactly
Show's being up in the last minute
They're still working, huh?
Hear this, Jim, six o'clock
It's almost show time
Twenty years, buddy
How's it feel?
Must be tired, you must be
I'm tired
A little short shock by it all
But triumph, huh
I mean, this is...
You did it
I've been talking too much basically
and I just feel kind of talked out
It was you stood by me all that time
When this is over
we gotta head for the syria
Definitely
We met at the Dartmouth College in the late 60's
And we're in our young twenties then
full of piss and vinegar
trying to figure out what we're gonna to do in life
I mean, you've spent a lot of time doing this
You must, you know, man
Twenty years
Yeah
Twenty years on this thing
He won for the third time
the ICP infinity award for photojournalism
He's won the Robert Capa prize five times
and picture of the year
I don't know how many times
It's my pleasure, Jim Nachtwey
I was young, I was starting, I was green, I was excited
I was interested in adventure
I was interested in travel
Over the years
the real sense of purpose
became stronger
The people I photographed
were much more important than
than myself
I think he thinks the good will triumph eventually over evil
with all the setbacks on the route
But I think that's what keeps him
straight as his own head about what he is doing
I think it's optimism keeps him from being cynical finally
You can get off of the tracts pretty easily
if you started thinking what you're doing
isn't gonna make a difference
that the wars will go on forever and ever and ever
I think the main conflict is
whether there's any point of his life
when he can give up what he is doing
because there are no old combat for photographers for good reason
So what you do, if you're lucky enough
touch wood to get through the gauntlet of your job and of your life
You know, Jim's been wounded four or five times
and had terrible diseases and
terrible physical trauma to his life
And how do you control your emotions in front of such situations
Because I have to
Because for me, to go to these places and cave in
would be useless
What I do is that I channel my emotions into my work
Any anger that I'm feeling
frustration, disbelief, grief
I try and channel it into my pictures
The possibility of a normal life is the main conflict
and what he had to sacrifice to live the life that he leads
So having a family, having a stable, romantic, domestic environment...
'cause he's never been able to have one
He's given everything to them, to the job
It's more difficult to get
publications to focus on
issues that are more critical
that do not provide people an escape from reality
but tend to get them deeper into reality
to be concerned about something
much greater than themselves
And I think people are concerned
I think quite often
publishers don't give their audience enough credit for that
In fact
at the end of the day
I believe people do want to know when there are some
major tragedy going on when there are some
unacceptable situation happening in this world
And they want something done about it
That's what I believe
May 22
Dear Mr. Nachtwey
I read this story concerning the Sumarno family
and my soul could not rest
I cannot imagine the hardship and turmoil this family is enduring
I don't have much
I get only 396 dollars a month social security
But I'll try and send 20 dollars a month for the family as long as I am able
We must look at it
We're required to look at it
We're required to do what we can about it
If we don't
who will?
Do I make a living from other people's suffering?
Has their suffering and misery been
my ladder to success?
Do I exploit people?
Am I the bloodsucker
the vampire with the camera?
What's your name?
Jim
Why photograph war
Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior
which has existed throughout history
by means of photography
The proportion of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance
yet that very idea has motivated me
For me, the strength of photography
lies in its ability to evoke a sense of humanity
If war is in attempt to abnegate humanity
then photography can be perceived as the opposite of the war
And if it's used well
it can be a powerful ingredient in the antidote to war
In a way
if an individual assumes the risk of placing himself in the middle of war
in order to communicate to the rest of the world what is happening
he's trying to negotiate for peace
Perhaps that's the reason why those in charge perpetuating war
do not like to have photographers around
In the field
what you experience is extremely immediate
what you see is not an image on the page in a magazine
ten thousand miles away
with an advertisement for ROLEX watches on the next page
What you see
is unmitigated pain, injustice and misery
It's occurred to me that if everyone can be there just once
to see for themselves
what a white phosphorus does to the face of a child
and what unspeakable pain is caused by the impact of a single bullet
or how a jag piece of shrapnel can rip someone's leg off
If everyone can be there to see for themselves
the fear and grief just one time
and they would understand
that nothing is worth letting things get to the point
with that happens to even one person
let alone thousands
But everyone cannot be there
and that is why photographers go there
to show them
to reach out and grab them
and make them stop what they're doing
and pay attention to what is going on
to create pictures powerful enough
to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media
and shake people out of their indifference
to protest
and by the strength of that protest
to make others protest
Does it cause any health problem?
They say
they are coughing sometimes out there
but when they return
they'll get something from Suhara
like a milk
together with a green porridge
Thank you
The worst thing
is to feel that as a photographer
I'm benefiting from someone else's tragedy
This idea haunts me
It's something I have to reckon with everyday
because I know
that if I ever allow genuine compassion
to be overtaken by person ambition
I would have sold my soul
The only way I can justify my role
is to have respect for the other person's predicament
The extent to which I do that
is the extent to which I become accepted by the other
and to that extent
I can accept myself