Sacco, Morris, and Playing with Representation
by ajacart
When talking about Spiegelman’s Maus these past few weeks in class, I kept being drawn back to thoughts about the works of Joe Sacco. Primarily concerned with the Israel-Palestine conflict in his graphic novels Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, he has also touched on the Yugoslav wars (Safe Area Gorazde) among other things. His book Safe Area Gorazde is hailed on its amazon page as a ‘Landmark of New Journalism’, which was a movement in the ’60s and ’70s which was characterised by unconventional methods of reportage, wherein fiction would be interwoven with stories about real-life events. This methodology, of course, has similar issues surrounding it as does the subject of representing memory in life narrative (such as Maus). There was much debate over New Journalism for its potentially haphazard representation of truth, they held the position that “Their works challenged the ideology of objectivity and its related practices that had come to govern the profession. The New Journalists argued that objectivity does not guarantee truth and that so-called “objective” stories can be more misleading than stories told from a clearly presented personal point of view.” (Encyclopedia Britannica). A similar argument that raged approaching the ’90s, in the time-period Sacco was operating in, was that surrounding Errol Morris’ 1988 film, The Thin Blue Line. This was the first documentary film to use recreations, and many found them overly laden with persuasive tactics and not nearly objective enough to constitute a documentary.
When artists of any genre or medium take it upon themselves to represent a tragedy, be it the Holocaust, the Israel-Palestine Conflict, or the murder of a police officer, to what extent are they tied to being absolutely objective. A wholly objective account of any occurrence would not only be impossible within the limits of any medium’s representation, but would also most probably be mechanically boring. There ought to be lee-way for any sort of journalism wherein allowances are made for a more evocative explication of a subject. Passing on inherited memory which feels engrained.
Hey! I found this topic really interesting to consider. I have seen ‘The Thin Blue Line’ and I was fascinated by its impact on Adams’s case, despite the controversy surrounding its objectivity.I found it very persuasive and I can understand why it was so effective, but it still surprises me that a film made by an outside documentary-maker had so much influence in deciding a man’s fate.
I think Morris’s use of recreations is particularly significant. Like Spiegelman, he chose to attempt to represent events that he was not present for, essentially fillling in the gaps between eyewitness accounts and what actually happened. You probably already know this but Adams got into a legal battle with Morris about rights, as he felt Morris had hijacked his experience and taken control of his life (http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/06/us/freed-inmate-settles-suit-with-producer-over-rights-to-story.html). I think that it is questionable whether Morris had the right to assume responsibility for speaking on behalf of Adams, yet in doing so he was instrumental in helping Adams’s case and he was not to know that his work would end up being so valuable. It just shows how contentious the ethics of recreating/representing someone else’s experiences can be.
Anyway, great post! Rosie