Kirsten Johnson has worked as a cameraperson on so many of the landmark documentaries of this decade, yet I had never heard her name before seeing this movie. If you watch even the most acclaimed of documentaries, you’ve probably seen her work: Citizenfour, The Invisible War, Trapped, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs Gravity, Trembling Before G-D, Outrage, Fahrenheit 9/11. She ties so many great documentaries together, it’s a crime we don’t know her name.
What is a camera person? The DP is responsible for creating a unified look while capturing interviews, A-roll footage (footage that the director demands), B-roll (footage the director may want), and C-roll (footage that could be important but you never know). If the director is the brains of the operation, the cameraperson is its eyes and timing. If the cameraperson misses the scene, the shot is gone. Thus, there are hours and hours of unique extraneous footage that fall to the cutting room floor during the editing of the documentary process.
Cameraperson collects the footage, A-roll through C-roll, from her various documentaries that has echoed through her head throughout the years. Kirsten calls it a kind of video diary, but it feels like memories pinging through her mind on a sleepless night. Through editing, Cameraperson explodes space and time, connecting disparate footage through the subconscious tissue of common words, themes, actions or sounds. One minute we could be watching a woman dealing with the leftovers of her mother’s suicide in New York, another we’re watching a Nigerian nurse attempt to save a newborn baby without having the proper equipment, and the next we’re watching her children put the camera lens on her camera. Our only guideposts through this journey are occasional interstitial locations and the occasional explanatory subtitle.
By eschewing a singular political message, Cameraperson comes close to exploring the meaning of life. Without kowtowing to a specific creed or mentality, what emerges from this kaleidoscopic collection of life is a universal spirituality about the resilience of life and humans. But, Cameraperson is a film haunted by an extended visit to Bosnia dealing with the aftermath of a genocide, and Kirsten’s mother suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Birth, Life, Death, War, Loss, Poverty, Money all dance around each other like skeletons and ghosts in a haunted mansion. Far from being a collection of global misery, Kirsten includes triumphs with the trials, ensuring Cameraperson isn’t just an endurance run of the world’s ails.
Float into Cameraperson without expecting a definitive message to pull away. Through unexpected juxtaposition, Kirsten transcends the limitations of narrative documentaries and creates moments of genuine profundity. Though unexpectedly heavy and exhausting, Cameraperson delivers a rewarding punch if you’re paying attention.
Cameraperson is currently touring various theaters. Find a nearby screening here.
