Eddie Adams: War Photographer
A new documentary presents the career of Eddie Adams, who took some of the world's most well-known images of horror.
And it’s hard to watch CBS’s Bob Schieffer break down Adams’ photographs without recalling how he recently said media bias didn’t matter since there are so many news outlets available today.
Adams, who died in 2004 after a battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, proved a better journalist than some of his peers. He brought no specific agenda to his work. He hoped his images would help humanity, and the only book he ever contributed to was one aimed at celebrating those who fought for civil rights without guns or violence.
The film follows Adams through 13 wars, but even when he switched gears from war photographer to celebrity shutterbug for hire, the fire for his craft burned just as brightly.
Adams was a giant in his field, but his personality proved less than agreeable. He was cranky, particular, and stubborn, but he inspired fierce devotion in friends and colleagues alike.
Footage of Adams himself describing his work and his approach pepper the documentary, and his casual profanity punctures any mythology which might swirl around him.
Weapon strives to show how that Vietnam photograph haunted Adams for the rest of his life. It certainly became his professional calling card, the one photograph nearly everyone remembered and the one he couldn’t escape.
The reality is Adams’ art haunted him more than any single image. He was never satisfied any time he pointed his camera. He always thought he could improve his craft and felt he didn’t deserve credit for whatever positive impact his photos might have. At one point the photographer helped carry a wounded U.S. soldier off the battlefield, but he later brushed off attempts to award him for the act.
A potentially powerful segment from the film finds Adams revisiting the general who shot the Vietcong guerrilla in his famous photograph. The reunion came years later after the general had moved to the United States and opened up a Virginia-based pizza shop. But the payoff is incomplete. Adams wasn’t the type of person to build up such a reunion, and the film stands on more solid ground when letting his peers describe his work ethic.
An Unlikely Weapon meanders at times, particularly as Adams transitioned from the battleground to Hollywood. But what emerges under director Susan Morgan Cooper’s unsparing eye is a portrait of an artist that’s nearly as rich as the moments Adams captured on film.
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Christian Toto is a freelance writer and film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also contributes movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show and runs the blog What Would Toto Watch?
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11 Comments
1. David Thomson:Eddie Adams unwittingly slimed the Saigon police chief. He later regretted ever snapping the picture—for it was highly misleading. The Viet Cong fighter was also a terrorist who had already murdered a number of people. He did not have a right to a trial and the city was experiencing something of a martial law existence. Adams not only became friendly with the general in later years—he also apologized for the infamous photograph. The legacy media interpreted it in a totally dishonest manner.
Jul 6, 2009 - 2:11 am 2. fear Obama:I am thankful we didn’t have cell phone digital cameras in Vietnam.
That picture he took would have been child’s play.
-special memory
great friend and my hero Charles- presumed killed in action, body not recovered. 07/06/68
18 years old-
-But not to weep-
Jul 6, 2009 - 5:05 am 3. GRUNT:we celebrated one hell of a Fourth.
McNamara was cursed with a long life! I wish he had lived another 100 years, so he could have been tormented further by his evil deeds! He played politics with the lives of America’s children! There is no excuse for this man!
Jul 6, 2009 - 9:23 am 4. njcommuter:Why can’t we find a way to turn the Left’s crimes into images?
And I wish that everyone who has the chance will use that photo to teach their children about the laws of war–and the moral ambiguity of a single photo.
Jul 6, 2009 - 10:06 am 5. 11B40:Greetings:
Back in the last ‘69, I was an infantry squad leader in Viet Nam. One day, while we were being resupplied by helicopter out in the bush, a camera crew arrived along with the things we needed.
A while later, our Captain came over to me with the crew in tow and asked me if I wanted to take them out on a patrol I was about to leave on. In one of my proudest moments in the war, I replied, in my New York fashion, with a question, “Do I have to bring them back?” We went out; they didn’t.
I am profoundly uncomfortable with media involvement in combat operations. It’s one more thing to worry about when everyone is chock full of worries already. Nobody goes into a restaurant through the kitchen. Our combat soldiers deserve similar respect. Let the media build their résumés on someone else’s work.
Jul 6, 2009 - 10:07 am 6. Nora:An Unlikely Weapon is definitely a must see! The way the images are put together and presented is absolutely fabulous.
Jul 6, 2009 - 2:59 pm 7. M. Report:1. David Thomson:
Police Chief > VC Terrorist/murderer
The way I heard it, the Police Chief’s wife
Jul 6, 2009 - 7:20 pm 8. jvon:was one of the victims; She was dismembered,
and bled to death.
You ask me we could learn a few things from that police chief.
Jul 6, 2009 - 9:51 pm 9. Ronnie Schreiber:It’s ironic that the two most iconic images of the Vietnam war, Eddie Adams’ Saigon Execution and Nick Ut’s napalm burned Vietnamese girl at Trang Bang, ended up distorting the truth.
Adams’ long insisted that the South Vietnamese general was right to summarily execute the VC who had just killed a bunch of people during a VC operation in Saigon. Adams said, regretfully, that the general killed the VC and his photo figuratively killed the general. Adams regarded the general as a hero.
Nick Ut’s photo was used by antiwar activists and to this day it is seen as symbolic of US military action in Vietnam but no Americans were in the photo. The napalm was dropped by South Vietnamese planes, not US planes, at the order of ARVN commanders, not US. The soldiers in the picture are Vietnamese, not US.
When I point this out to lefties, they like to go on about how the napalm girl photo teaches “larger truths” than the facts of the photo.
Jul 6, 2009 - 10:38 pm 10. Jack Mullockheap:Dave Thompson is correct:
Neil Davis, an Australian War Photographer gives a partial account of that time here: http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/frontline/clip3/
Neil, who worked mostly with Vietnamese and later Cambodian troops, shot the footage seen in the clip. He was killed / murdered by ‘friendly’ Thai troops during one of the many coups in Bangkok on 09 September 1985. The camera still running, Neil filmed his own death.
As Neil says: General Loan learned that the VC/NVA was captured near the police compound where Loan’s friend, wife and 6 children were ‘murdered’ by the VC/NVA. As an (OZ) adviser with the ARVN, I ran across Neil a few time in SVN. Always cheerful and optimistic, he loved the Vietnamese soldiers and always spoke up for them as they were doing the bulk of the fighting (contrary to what the official reports may say).
A number of attempts to assassinate Loan (sanctioned by the SVN president), failed, including a helicopter gunship attack on a bunker Loan was in. General Nygoc Loan died from cancer at his home in Burke, Washington. It was definitely one of those occasions during the TET offensive, 1968, where you wouldn’t want to investigate too thoroughly for fear what you might dig up about your own troops. No names – No pack drill.
Jul 7, 2009 - 1:08 am 11. ricpic:The obscenity of that picture is safe me looking at it.
Jul 7, 2009 - 7:05 pm