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MillimeterTim Hetherington: Farewell and Thank You
Apr 28, 2011 12:29 PM, By Cynthia Wisehart
Halfway through the “Restrepo” screening at the DGA, I stepped out to check in on my sick daughter; she was OK, but still I briefly debated whether I should just head home. But I could not. I felt I was in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan with those soldiers and I could not abandon them: No one gets to give up. So I went back inside. I appreciated the irony that in some small way, I was experiencing why soldiers go back to war, even as the film transformed my anti-war ideas from an intellectual conviction to a gut-level certainty.
The filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington were there and talked after. I couldn't leave then either. The last time I'd talked to Tim Hetherington had been several years prior at Sundance about his harrowing footage for “The Devil Comes on Horseback.” At the time, I marveled at his nuance and compassion — and how he was reaching for meaning in a profession where many, by necessity, are cowboy junkies, keeping their distance from too much reality as they document the cruelest realities on earth.
Many fine artists are observers. But Hetherington talked like a poet and shot like one too, and while his words tumbled over with ideas and questions, his images were totally sure-footed, restrained about conclusions, explicit and ambiguous in all the right ways. I thought of him as someone who could really see. And could really use a camera, any camera.
Onstage at the DGA screening (co-sponsored by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) he spoke about the price of soldiers living with what they have seen and done. He knew about the seeing part first-hand obviously and could imagine in a profound way that the doing part was a million times worse. If he was brave, his subjects were always braver. But brave is overrated, his images always seem to say. Better to lend a hand.
In addition to documenting human conflict, Hetherington worked to end it — living in Liberia for years after the war, setting aside his camera to work for the UN, Human Rights Watch, and more. So it was not only his art, it was his life's work to fight for understanding and progress.
Hetherington's partner on “Restrepo,” Sebastian Junger, has written that Hetherington wanted to make a film about the relationship between young men and violence. Abstract as it may sound, I'm certain he could have done it, and I wish he'd had the chance to try. Tim Hetherington died in Libya last week; sadly, that's what motivated me to write. So I'll just say I'm grateful for his life and work, and for everyone working right now to elevate our art form and human life.
If you want to know more about Tim Hetherington, see some of his still images online at http://www.timhetherington.com; see the one that won the 2007 World Press Photo Award http://www.archive.worldpressphoto.org/search/layout/result/indeling/detailwpp/form/wpp/q/ishoofdafbeelding/true/trefwoord/year/2007; visit the Margulies Warehouse in Miami where his work is part of a group show on Africa; view his short experimental film Diary http://vimeo.com/18497543, see “Restrepo” http://www.facebook.com/restrepothemovie?v=info, “The Devil Came on Horseback, and Liberia: An Uncivil War,” http://www.gabrielfilms.com/liberia/site/; read his recent book “Infidel” and his 2009 book “Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold.”
His parents have set up a site for him here http://www.timhetherington.org <http://www.timhetherington.org/condolences> where you can get information regarding charitable contributions.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
