Regarding the Pain of Others

Rating:
Summary: War in the time of photography
Review: It is photography, beginning with the Civil War, that almost exclusively provides us a window to the suffering of others. Ms. Sontag's essay explores the capacity of the photographic arts to convey such suffering. Throughout, she identifies photographs that have seemed to distill the image of war in a particularly unforgettable way, that is, to imprint elements of suffering, both uniquely associated with a specific war at a specfic point in time and more generally attributable to war. Although she refers to her book's "argument," it seems more precise to maintain that, like the subject of her essay, her aim here is to assess the power and the limits of photography to convey pain to those viewers who enjoy the luxury of being detached from the specific suffering so depicted. Stated differently, her essay itself develops an "image" of the art of photography and its effect on spectators who enjoy various degrees of detachment from images before them.

Having been one of the more "provincial" spectators she describes in her book, Regarding the Pain of Others appears to provide an excellent source to discover particularly powerful photographs, at least as commended by Ms. Sontag who has been seriously contemplating the "war image" in all its manifestations for at least two decades. It would have been helpful for the book to have included some of the examples she describes. (This is Art History without the art.) There are times, too, when she seems to forget that suffering is not a stranger in the so-called developed, modern world. The haunting images, captured by photographers on 9/11, of men and women jumping to certain death from the upper floors of the World Trade Center to avoid consumption in the inferno that it had become, will forever retain the sad distinction of being among this century's first "representations" of the continuing horror of suffering in war.

Rating:
Summary: War in the time of photography
Review: It is photography, beginning with the Civil War, that almost exclusively provides us a window to the suffering of others. Ms. Sontag's essay explores the capacity of the photographic arts to convey such suffering. Throughout, she identifies photographs that have seemed to distill the image of war in a particularly unforgettable way, that is, to imprint elements of suffering, both uniquely associated with a specific war at a specfic point in time and more generally attributable to war. Although she refers to her book's "argument," it seems more precise to maintain that, like the subject of her essay, her aim here is to assess the power and the limits of photography to convey pain to those viewers who enjoy the luxury of being detached from the specific suffering so depicted. Stated differently, her essay itself develops an "image" of the art of photography and its effect on spectators who enjoy various degrees of detachment from images before them.

Having been one of the more "provincial" spectators she describes in her book, Regarding the Pain of Others appears to provide an excellent source to discover particularly powerful photographs, at least as commended by Ms. Sontag who has been seriously contemplating the "war image" in all its manifestations for at least two decades. It would have been helpful for the book to have included some of the examples she describes. (This is Art History without the art.) There are times, too, when she seems to forget that suffering is not a stranger in the so-called developed, modern world. The haunting images, captured by photographers on 9/11, of men and women jumping to certain death from the upper floors of the World Trade Center to avoid consumption in the inferno that it had become, will forever retain the sad distinction of being among this century's first "representations" of the continuing horror of suffering in war.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and Though Provoking
Review: Susan Sontag has always been reknown for being able to ask just the right questions, in her thought provoking essays, and she has been even better known as one of the finest writers on photography as an art form, so it is no surprise that both these traits are in evidence in this book. She looks at the moral and ethical issues surrounding the representation of people in severe suffering, or of dead bodies, particularly through the medium of photography. The result is a short book that manages to confront a number of very pressing issues.

Among the topics to brings to the fore is the idea of the media as communicating information. Certainly, a lot of journalists are keen to believe that they have a unique role in bringing events, particularly humanitarian catastophes and wars to the front of the public conciousness, and indeed it is their very efforts that are stirring up public emotion. Sontag examines this assumption closely, as well as its popular criticism - namely that a sensationalistic media have so inundated society with shocking media that we have become all but inured to everyday human tragedy.

She also examines very interesting issues such as the idea of photography as a medium being predicated on real authenticity, and how photos that are "staged" immediately lose a great deal of value in the public conciousness. She examines war photography in a historical context, and finds that many of the war photos before the Vietnam war were staged, including the two most famous victory photos of WWII - that of a Russian raising a flag over the Reichstag and that of American Soldiers raising a giant flag on Iwo Jima.

She further discussing the idea of a photograph having a "universal meaning". Certainly, a photograph of a destroyed city with dead civillians will evoke similar reactions of horror and disgust, but Sontag wryly points out how perpertrators of atrocities are always quick to deny involvement and blame the otherside for the results depicted on film. She cites how Franco insisted that the Basques had used dynamite to blow up Guernica in the Spanish civil war and that no air strikes had taken place which is contrary to what actually happened. So, then perhaps the photographer, can only convey a moment in time, its ideological significance is left for others to determine.

Overall, it is a wonderful book, well worth the effort in reading, covering some important and vital issues. Definitely Sontag, in very fine fettle indeed, which means concise, intelligent and overall, very very wise.

Rating:
Summary: An easy to avoid topic that we should all look at
Review: Susan Sontag seems to be a lightening rod for the political sensitive, rare is the person who has lukewarm feelings about Sontag- people seem to even love her or hate her. Not sure if I am ready to confess my love for her yet but I am defiantly far closer to the love side than the hate side.

Regarding the Pain of Others was my first encounter with her. In truth, I only bought it because I happened upon while browsing thought the bookstore and was struck by its great cover design and bought it knowing little more about it than that. Despite my incredibly poor rational for buying the book (judging it by its cover!) I lucked out immensely with this one!

There are few topics more important or relevant in these times than war and our (the west's) perception of war. Sontag takes an unblinking look at these topics of pain, suffering and there representations in photography and comes away with remarkable insight to share. While occasionally going into enough detail to make me squirm in my seat it is important to stress that this book is enjoyable- it is written well and although meandering at times it is always easy to follow and organized.

Even if you disagree with some of the conclusions that Sontag reaches in this book you will still benefit from the ways that it forces you to crystallize your own views. Above all else thought these topics are so incredibly important that they deserve attention from all of us- if you don't read this book read something else on the topic!

Rating:
Summary: Some interesting material, but too loosely organized.
Review: This book is an extended essay on the proper role of pictures of suffering, and what constitutes a moral way to react to such pictures. Sontag touches on a number of other issues along the way, as well as providing an historical perspective. In fact, Sontag sees such pictures as in the tradition of religious paintings and sculptures which graphically have depicted suffering, in Christianity and in pagan myths. Sontag does not reach many definite conclusions, and those pretty much in the last 2 short chapters, but looks at each issue as objectively as she can. While there was much interesting material, the book, short as it is, is organized much too loosely for my taste, and is even repetitious, so that I often found myself skimming.

Rating:
Summary: Timely, wise and informed
Review: When Susan Sontag prepared and wrote her newest book REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS, she probably did not know that at the time of its release to the public the world would once again be at war. Sontag remains one of our more inportant American philosphers and commentators and this book addresses the representaton of pain, war, agony, and injustice as captured by painters from Velasquez, Goya, Callot and others to photographers Matthew Brady, Capa, Bourke-White et al. While she sees it as the responsibility for these people to capture the horrors of war in order that 'we' as observors will be informed and thus never allow such things to continue, she also now addresses how important it is for us to not have these images edited from public consumption - a very current feature that we are now seeing (or not seeing) in the TV and newspaper versions of the Iraqi war. Sontag gives evidence that some of the more sensational photographs from the Civil War and the Vietnam War were actually staged; corpses were added or altered or assasinations were set for the photojournalist much as the paintings of the 19th century were modified to gain impact. She shows that the horrors if the Nazi concentration camps were best captured by the untrained camera rather than the images made famous by Bourke-White et al, manipulating the light and position of vantage to play on the message instead of simply reporting it.

She stimulates our anger when she reports such incidences during the Gulf War as "American television viewers weren't allowed to see footage acquired by NBC (which the network then declined to run) of what superiority could wreak: the fate of thousands of Iraqi conscripts who, having fled Kuwait City at the end of the war, on February 27, were carpet bombed with explosives, napalm, radioactive DU (depleted uranium)rounds, and cluster bombs as they headed north, in convoys and on foot, on the road to Basra, Iraq - a slaughter notoriously described by one American oficer as a 'turkey shoot'". She shows that atrocities in foreign places are 'more acceptable' to view than cloistered photographic documents of our own history of the abuse of slaves, the poor, AIDS victims here in this country. We can construct Museums for the reminders of the German atrocities of genocide, crematoriums, starvation etc, but we do not have a single Museum to remind us of the American abuse of African American slaves (lynchings, beatings, prisons etc).

There are many quotes to highlight; "It is because a war, any war, doesn't seem as if it can be stopped that people become less responsive to the horrors. Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do - but who is that 'we'? - and nothing 'they' can do either - and who are 'they'? - then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic."

Sontag urges us to be more in tune, more involved, more sensitive to the visual images that report the pain of others. "We can't imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is; and how normal it becomes. Can't understand, can't imagine. That's what every soldier, and every journalist and aid worker and independent observer who has put in time under fire, and had the luck to elude the death that struck down others nearby, stubbornly feels. And they are right." This is the powerful last paragraph in this intensely moving book. It is a shame that some of the photographs and paintings to which she refers could not have been inserted in this book, but even without the visuals, this is a book that reveals myriad secrets and truths. Highly recommended reading.