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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Tim Hetherington, May His Memory Be a Blessing


Journalist, photographer, and filmmaker Tim Hetherington was tragically killed yesterday in Libya.
Together with Sebastian Junger, Tim Hetherington created Restrepo, the Oscar-nominated documentary they co-directed while embedded with an American platoon in Afghanistan. I found it to be one of the best films about war ever made, fiction or non. Hetherington and Junger embedded themselves for a year with the Second Platoon of Battle Company of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade in the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan to shoot the bulk of Restrepo and created a non-fiction film that approximates the experience of a lengthy military deployment in the country as much as would be possible without actually going there oneself.
Hetherington, in his own words, about what he did:
"Well, we're journalists, so our default position is we're not writing editorial. We're trying to bring information to readers, viewers, so that they can make up their own conclusions.
And you know, part of this is that we're bearing witness to what's happening. And in bearing witness, by not having opinions, then we're just recording everything that we come across. It's not like we're sort of saying, "Oh, we've got to present soldiers, and this film is glorifying soldiering." It's not, it's just that this is bearing witness to what happens, this is what their reality is like, the good and the bad. That they [the soldiers] responded to that, when they saw the film... it was really gratifying, because it was true to their experience, both the good and the bad."

Mourning the loss of a courageous journalist who took great risks so that the rest of us could see what is happening beyond our shores.
Yit-gadal v'yit-kadash sh'may raba b'alma dee-v'ra che-ru-tay, ve'yam-lich mal-chutay b'chai-yay-chon uv'yo-may-chon uv-cha-yay d'chol beit Yisrael, ba-agala u'vitze-man ka-riv, ve'imru amen.
Y'hay sh'may raba me'varach le-alam uleh-almay alma-ya.
Yit-barach v'yish-tabach, v'yit-pa-ar v'yit-romam v'yit-nasay, v'yit-hadar v'yit-aleh v'yit-halal sh'may d'koo-d'shah, b'rich hoo. layla (ool-ayla)* meen kol beer-chata v'she-rata, toosh-b'chata v'nay-ch'mata, da-a meran b'alma, ve'imru amen.
Y'hay sh'lama raba meen sh'maya v'cha-yim aleynu v'al kol Yisrael, ve'imru amen.
O'seh shalom beem-romav, hoo ya'ah-seh shalom aleynu v'al kol Yisrael, ve'imru amen.

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