The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia, 2002 (Grade B)

Director" Jennifer Baichwal
Topic Photography - manipulation of images

sez says: this explores some heavy philosophical terrain. Shelby Lee Adams, a photographer, who grew up in Appalachia, takes photos of people in the far-back hollers of Kentucky -- and presents those photos to the world via galley showings and books. He says he is just presenting these people to the world, as they are, and he is not exploiting them in any way. The film talks to many of the people who have had their pictures in his books,  and only a few have any problem at all with the pictures or with him.  But the pictures do, undeniably, perpetrate stereotypes about inbred simpletons who are immersed in poverty and misery.  The people in the photos are more complex than the pictures--and the pictures are sometimes rather shocking.  Did the photographer intentionally make the pictures shocking to sell the photos?  Are the photos art, or documentary materials?   Critics point out that he posed the pictures--and in so doing he makes them something other than documents--one man called them "Shelby Lee Adam's Picture Poems" -- and had no problem with them as 'visual poems' but stood firm against their being accepted as documentary photos. There are a lot of voices in this...and questions about morality, ethics, cultural elitism, what is art and more..are churning around the discussions. It is well done. (Grade B)   

Art & Copy, 2009 (Grade B+)

Director: Doug Pray
Producer:
Topic: Advertising

featuring Lee Chow; Cliff Freeman; Jeff Goodby; David Kennedy; George Lois; Charlie Moss; Hal Riney; Phyllis K Robinson; Ed Rollins; Rich Silverstein; Mary Wells; Dan Wieden.and others

this documentary explores the world of advertising and features a host of interviews with some of the biggest names in the business. Meet the talented minds who created tag lines forever embedded in the American psyche, including "Just Do It," "Where's the Beef?" and "Got Milk?" Hal Riney, Ed Rollins and many others share their insights. Used for fun and entertainment--in the name of selling stuff--and for insidious ends--like manipulating emotions and lying to get a candidate elected, the power of images and the right mix of just a few words can turn heads and shape our world.  This is really worth seeing.