Photojournalism in the Movies

[Steve Russell]

The American Film Institute released their Top 10 Top 10., The Top ten movies in the top ten genres.
Well, photojournalism must have been the 11th genre!

What would have been the #1 movie in the photojournalism genre?

Photojournalist Movies

Under Fire (1983) - Nick Nolte,
Salvador (1986) - Oliver Stone + James Woods
City of God (2002) - Great movie!
Killing Fields (1984) - Some scenes filmed in Toronto Star newsroom
Rear Window (1954) - Grace Kelly, Wow!
Blowup (1966) - A lot of the old timers told me this is a movie that gave them the shutterbug!
The Bridges of Madison County (1995) - Clint Eastwood
The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) -
Harrison's Flowers (2000) - My wife would never look for me! Especially after seeing this movie.
The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) - When Mel Loved Photographers
Paparazzi (2004) - When Mel Hated Photographers

Other possiblities?

The Public Eye (1992)
Welcome to Sarajevo (1997)
Pecker (1998)
The Paper (1994)

[Derek Ruttan]

HOLY STOP BATH STEVE-MAN! How could you leave Spider-Man off the the list?!

[Andy Clark]

though.....not a photojournalism movie per say.....How could one not be inspired by Dennis Hopper as the photojournalist living at  Col. Kurtz's camp in Apocalypse Now. Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window and David Hemmings in Blow Up were not technically photojournalists......though I did expect that since photographer David Bailey (Hemmings) drove a Rolls Royce convertible in Blow Up....I would someday do the same, still waiting after 35 years...

[Peter McCabe]

Dinnis Hopper, what a photographer he portrayed,
but Photojournalist Movies
steve you got my top three right up there

Salvador (1986) - Oliver Stone + James Woods
Under Fire (1983) - Nick Nolte,
City of God (2002) - Great movie!

and on TV
remember
LOU GRANT
and
Daryl Anderson, who played the photographer Dennis Price, on the show he was referred to as animal

[Rob Skeoch]

I remember watching "The Eyes of Laura Mars" when it first came out and thinking... she has the same camera as me.

I still think Salvador was the best.

-Rob

[Michael Peake]

One of the most interesting, especially to a tabloid shooter, is a very rare and not-available-on-DVD movie called SHAKEDOWN with Howard Duff from 1950. But I've only seen it once more than 25 years ago.

Duff, a prototypical film noir actor, plays a shady photog who gets tied up with the mob and the ending is over the top - as he photographs the mobster who kills him. Now that's the way to go!

Will be a must buy when it surfaces on Blu-Ray.

-Peake

[Robin Rowland]

Then there are movies where the photojournalism is incidental but interesting.
All those popping speed graphics in all those old movies (and in the  ones the flash powder going off usually before the cowboy gets killed)

The one I always remember from when I was a kid was North by Northwest. 
Cary Grant walks into an office at the UN to talk to some guy. As Cary Grant approaches
the man, the bad guy throws a knife at the target and the victim falls into Grant's arms.
There's a guy with a speed graphic on a couch (waiting for who knows who) and grabs the picture, which of course is on the front page of every paper the next day (including when the cops pick up Cary at the auction)

Any other photojournalistic moments you remember that aren't necessarily the focus of the whole movie?

Robin

[Frank Shufletoski]

Here's a couple I found in one of those bins of lonesome DVDs:

War Stories, 2004 – Jeff Goldblum, Lake Bell, Louise Lombard, Jeffrry Nordling
Somebody has to shoot the picture, 1999 - Roy Scheider, Bonnie Bedelia

[kat Arnett]

How about one for the girls?  Jennifer Connelly in Blood Diamond!

In Kalifornia Brad Pitt is a journalist with his photojournalist girlfriend Juliette Lewis, on the trail of a serial killer...

Clive Owen played Photojournalist Dwight in Sin City...

Z (1969) - Jacques Perrin plays a photojournalist...

Barry Pepper played a photojournalist alongside Mel in We Were Soldiers...

Joe Pesci played a 1940s photographer in The Public Eye...

Julia Roberts played a photojournalist in StepMom, and a commercial portrait photographer in Closer...

and lest we forget Jimmy Olsen from Superman!


and via some googling, if anyone is interested a Columbia student wrote his Thesis on:
"How Ethical Dilemmas Shape Stereotypes of the On-Screen Pree Photographer in Motion Pictures from 1954 to 2006"

http://ijpc.org/Photojournalist%20Thesis.pdf

[Darryl Gibson]

Andy;
Your 1966 Roller is here

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Rolls-Royce-Silver-Shadow-LOW-MILES-1966-ROLLS-ROYCE-SILVER-SHADOW-A-C-88K-MILES-LOADED_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713Q2em153Q2el1262QQcategoryZ157073QQihZ008QQitemZ180254630493

It's cheap enough you can even get the top removed and get it painted like David's!
dg

[Louie Palu]

Just thought I would mention that in Under Fire, Nick Nolte sets up a photo of a dead rebel leader to make him look alive for anti-government propaganda. Not so great for our image. But I bought my first Nikon F-2 with the MD-2 after seeing that movie.

I loved James Woods crazy character in Salvador, if you watch closely when he fires the shutter the rewind crank doesn't move because there is no film in his film cameras and when John Savage takes a photo of an execution with his Leica it has the sound of a motordrive, with no drive on the camera. Not to mention John Savage sits in the middle of the road taking a photo of an airplane with a huge zoom lens for no logical photographic reason and is killed doing so. John Savages character is partly based on the real life and death of John Hoagland in El Salvador. I heard a story that Nikon would not pay sponsorship on the film and Canon did, so all the Nikons have the name taped over. James Woods never uses or even holds a Canon in the whole movie, yet the poster has him holding a Canon F-1 prominently on the poster.

Let's face it most of these movies misrepresent us and make us look bad. Although they are entertaining and when I was a kid inspirational, then again I thought Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now was inspiring. Heh heh heh...

How about War Photographer? It is a "movie".

[Tom Braid]

Public Eye has to be in there for sure.  The movie was written and loosely based from some tails from the one and only Weegee. America's first street and hard news shooter?  His self written autobiography "Weegee Naked City" with bad grammar and typos is a very interesting read.

Our movie review back in 1992 was and still is the funnies typo I have ever seen in our paper, the headline read; "Pubic Eye" it did pass the spell checker of course!! We were just glad that movie was not about a hairdresser as it could of been called "Public Hair" Now that typo would of been just too funny!

Weegee's portrait; http://home.att.net/~skweegee/weegee.jpg

Public Eye movie link; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105187/

Some Weegee Imgaes: http://images.google.ca/images?q=Weegee&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

[David Lucas]

Kat I'm pretty sure that Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis were the psychos and David Duchovny was the journalist with his girlfriend Michelle Forbes.

Cheers
David Lucas

[Tim Snow]

C'mon folks...Pecker, it's funny, quirky, and really shows how 95% started out, just walking the local streets snapping away, maybe not on stolen film, but still.

[Yvonne Berg]

I loved James Woods crazy character in Salvador, if you watch closely when he fires the shutter the rewind crank doesn't move because there is no film in his film cameras and when John Savage takes a photo of an execution with his Leica it has the sound of a motordrive, with no drive on the camera.

My husband hates going to movies with me if there are any scrums or people taking pictures because I always have to point out the errors - old fashioned flashbulbs or side brackets used in modern eras films (c'mon seriously....do the filmmakers never watch the news!), the motor drive sounds with no motor drive, the obviously backlit images with no flash that turn out perfectly balanced on the print, etc. etc.  Drives him batty!     Me too though....aren't there people on set paid to watch out for stuff like this?