A GOOD AUDIENCE
I sat amongst 40 mostly young people from 16 different countries, in a wonderful worn-out theatre in one of the poorest areas of England, watching a short film called SNAPSHOT. The lively young group settled as their Albanian, Danish, Spanish, Bosnian, Italian, Arabic and English fell silent. They gazed at the small screen to view an unexpected pleasure.
THE CRUEL WORLD OF BUSINESS
It is seemingly a simple tale of a young man, Ian, sensitively played by Josh Ward, an actor I have had the pleasure of knowing for 8 years. Ian is an insecure unemployed person on the spectrum. Unemployed because he is on the spectrum, continually being inadvertently overwhelmed by aural and visual overloads. As he struggles to hold himself together in various situation, and in particular when applying for jobs, we see that for others he is embarrassing, problematic and for the business people and their ‘human resources officers, Ian is too difficult to imagine employing, even though they appreciate that he is a talented photographer.
But who in business would bother and why would they bother? Ian is an outlier, potentially as troublesome as a trade unionist or a politically rebellious young person. He could reduce managerial security; he may call upon a need for human response of care not usually found in business management. After all, he might demand more attention and therefore threaten the maximalization of efficiency and profits. This dark hole in business – understanding themselves as being above community, seeing the community they squat in as a momentary facility, often as a dustbin, without accepting any responsibility towards its needs, shows up the business people as uncaring predators.
While I watched the film, I remembered something Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” This reminded me of the conversation I had with the producer, Sam Barrett, who spoke with great care about people who live with neurodivergent conditions and how important he believes it is to help others understand and become aware of how challanging life is to those on the spectrum. Sam had met John Clark, the talented young writer/director of the film, and saw from John’s interests, that he was writing the role of Ian as a reflection of himself.
ENHANCING HUMANITY
John had created a story that is somewhere between autobiography, documentary and fiction, which opens a discussion about the value of the individual’s experiences in society. Not only did Josh and John bring this character and problems of existence into the flickering luminosity of a film, but they also enhanced our humanity. This short film represents some of the best of us in Ian’s and our abilities to endure, to imagine and to find our whole being, in Ian’s case, through engaging with creativity. Also, the film gently reveals the importance of the arts themselves, beyond the story, to embrace and transform the rest of us, helping us to be more accepting, more understanding and more tolerant of others with different points of view, with different maladies, or with characterological quirks.
There is scene on a bus, as Ian travels to a job interview. Slowly he and we become increasingly uncomfortable as Ian becomes acutely aware of banal conversations and traffic sounds which surround him, and then of a man eating crispy-crunchy bits of junk food. The camera work by Jim Wraith and editing by Richard Heap create an opera of obsessions, making the viewer as much as Ian, anxious and uncomfortable. This scene goes beyond its narrative role to profoundly reveal how some people painfully struggle to maintain sanity and stability in a crowded world.
Having been a photographer and a director of photography much of my life, I was interested in why it was that Ian chose photography to concentrate his mind on and with? Josh explained that Ian finds the ability to see the world through the viewfinder in a more selective way, one which he has control over. It is true that photographers can determine just how much of the world they allow into their frame using formats, lens angles, distance from subject, light distribution, and to a degree, the depth of focus. It is a testimony to the subjective/objective truthfulness of photography that it can seemingly faithfully record a sort of reality at the same time as that reality is being mediated by the photographer’s choices. This mediation requires an amount of conscious and unconscious decision making, and for novice photographers, when successful decisions are revealed in the final print, they may begin to feel an empowerment over the medium and over their own lives.
A GOOD AUDIENCE
At the end of the showing of the film, the young audience of mixed races, religions, languages, culture and abilities were silent for a few moments and then burst into thunderous sustained whoops and applause. The film’s success in empathically showing a condition they had perhaps previously not understood and the power of the central performance by Josh, the young man they had shared bread with, sung songs and danced with, now sitting amongst them, was overwhelming. Some burst into tears, perhaps recognising Ian’s sensitivities in themselves, perhaps for the first time.
This is a film that young people and adults should see. We all need to create a kinder world and have a greater imagination and perspective when it comes to the variety of talents and abilities we have to express ourselves as human beings .
Let us hope that Josh and the team will find the recognition and opportunities they so deserve.
You can see more about the film here:
https://www.hiddenpicturesnorth.com/a-snapshot
ANOTHER NOTE:
I am photographing and filming a sold-out concert tonight, Saturday 22 October, 22.
I have had the pleasure of photographing the cover and other things for the musicians/composers.
And also shooting rehearsals from which these screen-grab shots were shot.
I particularly love the image at the end.
CW