1, 2, 3. Cheese!

Yangers n’ Tangers

J. K. Tang and M. Yang

BEHIND THE OSCAR-WINNING WORKS of Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), A24 film company unveils a cinematic glimpse into an alternate dystopia of the un-United States of America. Garland’s Civil War (2024) is a cautionary tale that forewarns the societal implications of humanity’s insensitivity towards violent imagery. 

With clearer and clearer images of the Gaza and Ukraine conflicts, we recognise the potency of photographic journalism as it shapes our perceptions and census of ‘objective’ reality, which stimulates more questions of journalistic ethics. How far can one go to capture and communicate the truth? Hence, it was these types of questions that shaped the viewership of Yangers and me in that 4.30pm session at George Street cinema. Here’s Yangers, detailing the promotional insight prior to the film…. 

I put the trailer on repeat and watched it back several times. I couldn’t get enough of Jesse Plemons asking, “What type of American?” The scene of a country torn apart, thrilling action, and the intense interactions promised a film that IMAX was made for. But outside the realms of the internet, and unlike the ubiquitous presence of Fall Guy and Challengers on Sydney’s transport system and billboards, an advertisement for Civil War in the wild was about as rare as a parking spot in CBD at 9am on a Monday. Akin to the dividing faction-states, we will zero in on two major specifics of this flick:

Part 1: The Spectacle 

How real can it get? Garland’s DJI Ronin 4D is the film’s meta-canvas, where the art of photography frames the artists and the art itself. The extent of self-stabilisation allows us to distinguish between the objectivity of omniscience and the subjectivity of hand-held first-person. It is the smooth levelling of this camera that emphasises the undeniable ennui of photographic journalism and the consequential moral injury.

Garland: “We knew we needed to shoot quickly, and move the camera quickly, and wanted something truthful in the camera behaviour, that would not over-stylise the war imagery…”

Under the ‘low-budget, high-reward’ A24, it is not a surprise that these cameras are just around $10,000, considering that the gear, usually used by Hollywood to film these IMAX-worthy shots, is north of $100,000. It is bang for your buck. The minimalist 4.6kg gem allows us to not skip a beat in the film crew’s frantic trip for the “perfect shot” both in and out of diegesis. 

Garland: “[it was] the final part of the ‘filmmaking puzzle’…the small-size and self-stabilisation mean[t] that the camera behave[d] weirdly like the human head. It sees ‘like’ us…”

The product of Garland’s DJI Ronin 4D is a metamodern masterpiece, one of hyper-reflexive commentary on our entropically-driven pursuit of narratives. Much like Lee, the director’s choice of camera epitomises and facilitates our innate desperation for the “perfect shot”. However, in this desperation lies the death of mankind’s moral soul, killed in the crosshairs of a camera. Cook, Yangers! Cook!

Part 2: The Semantics 

The powerful leitmotific “gun-shot” mirrors our media where it has become desensitised, offering anyone unlimited access to excessive amounts of imagery at any given moment, ultimately weaponising the camera as a tool for curating and presenting one’s life. This constant visual lifelogging has clearly shaped our collective psyche, influencing how we perceive influences. Reflecting on this, I recall the interaction between Jessie and Lee, where Jessie asks her if she would take a shot of her being killed. 

Lee’s response, “What do you think?” highlights the constant dilemmas faced by war photographers. The photographers themselves become desensitised, revealing that those who wield the camera are also weaponised by it, transforming into emotionless observers of human suffering. It is important to acknowledge the purpose of war photographers; although a photo of a guy in charge lying dead in the Oval Office sure ain’t gonna solve the problem, the notion of winning this Civil War, or any war in general, is only through the conversion of optics; understanding that no side can actually come out on top unless you’ve successfully convinced an amount of the population.

By considering this parallel between camera and gun, we realise there is something authentically ‘scary’ about cameras, as though they possessed some mythical ‘aura.’ There is something incredibly objective about the process of capturing light and creating a 2D representation of a scene; it is as though the lens sees through all lies and all falsifications, conveying an objective version of reality. Yet of course, this is impossible; hence the power of a photographer is in the PERSUASIVE power of a camera’s ability to convince their audience of the authenticity of an image (when in fact it is a carefully designed, highly biassed, version of reality and truth). Subjects of photos, therefore, are understandably ‘scared’ that the subjective intentionality of the photographer as an artist may be understood as objective reality, thus cementing a version of their identity that may be in some way untrue or edited.

In the final scene, Jessie fulfils her identity as the emotionless cameraman who must stay morally neutral in all circumstances. Due to the persuasive power of photography, Jessie realises that to capture moments that no one else can, she must forgo her personal biases and create a mirage that is as close to reality as any could. Subsequently, the detachment of the self from the scene, or a merging of camera and body, to a point where memories and notions of self-identity come second to the functionality of the camera and the capturing of truth. 

Thus, in this way, the photographer becomes parallel with the gunman who shoots without remorse, detached from all standards of morality. What results from such an instantaneous but complete detachment from the moment and all moral moorings is a significant moral scarring that occurs AFTER the photo is taken. With “perfect shot” taken, the editing room becomes a space for contemplation and reflection, an opportunity to reconnect and resonate with the deepest, most emotional parts of humanity – an opportunity to perhaps heal the moral injury attained during their valiant moments of selfless artmaking and devotion to truth. 

The Perfect Shot?  Writing about the Civil War reshaped my understanding of the power perpetuated by the tools we use to document and present our lives; the ability to document and desensitise, revealing their influence on perception and the ethical challenges the photographers face.