On April 20, 2011, celebrated photojournalist Tim Hetherington was killed in the city of Misrata, covering the Libyan civil war. A new HBO documentary, “Which Way is the Frontline From Here?” opens with footage of this day, the last chilling moments of the photographer’s life as he travels with a group of photographers deep into the war zone. Filmmaker Sebastian Junger, a well-regarded journalist, knows this moment, and its subject, well. Junger and Hetherington collaborated on “Restrepo,” the Sundance award-winning chronicle of a 15-month deployment of a platoon in the Korengal Valley of northeast Afghanistan, widely known as one of the most dangerous places on earth, and it’s clear that they developed a close working relationship and a deep friendship. Combining footage from Hetherington’s life as well as interviews with friends, family members, and loved ones, the film presents a moving portrait of an artist willing to take risks to explore the human side of war. ARTINFO’s Craig Hubert sat down with Junger to discuss the film, the compelling attraction of war, and what younger journalists can learn from Hetherington’s approach to his work.
As a writer and filmmaker, what do you think you can do with film that you can’t do with words?
Well, you know, they go to different parts of the brain. Like, if you’re reading a book about combat and something goes bang, you don’t jump. When you’re reading a book, your brain understands you’re in an armchair reading a book. When you’re in a movie theater watching a movie about combat, and something goes bang, you jump. Your brain doesn’t know you’re not there. So, books deliver information and understanding but not experience. Films are short on information but long on experience. Those are both really powerful things and they go together really well.
How soon after Tim’s death did you realize this was a film and not a written piece, that you wanted to share Tim’s experience instead of just passing on information about his life?
He was a good friend, a really admirable person and a really wonderful person. But, the most remarkable thing about Tim as a public person was his work. I think it would be very hard to make a film about a writer, and I think it would be very hard to write a book about a photographer. How do you show his photos with words? You can’t. But you can show them with film. It just made sense that he would be portrayed in a movie rather than in a book.
Where did you start?
The first thing we did – we didn’t really shoot anywhere, this is all existing footage – was interviews with people who knew and loved Tim, like his family, some of his friends. Also, I interviewed journalists who were with him during the attack and survived to tell that story. Then you start collecting footage – footage Tim shot on his last day, he was shooting footage up to several minutes before he was killed. You have footage from other journalists who were there – Liberia, Afghanistan. Then I have footage that I shot of Tim in Afghanistan. And then he did a lot of media, like I did, after “Restrepo” came out, so we were fortunate that we had dozens of hours of Tim, professionally shot, good interviews of Tim talking about his work. You get all that together and just start to shape it.
With the interviews you conducted, was there trepidation among his loved ones to discuss this on camera?
Oh, yeah. Because of the stories I’ve told, I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve suffered great losses, starting with my book “The Perfect Storm.” That’s one of the hardest things there is, to have an interview like that. So there was trepidation on my part, and probably on the part of his parents and loved ones. It’s hard to open up and talk about something like that. The film wouldn’t be a good film, it wouldn’t exist, if those people didn’t summon up enough courage, and enough trust in me. But it was hard.
As you were shaping all the material, what sort of questions were you asking yourself, about Tim, his life, the nature of combat journalism?
Well, I was trying to figure out what made Tim different, because he was different than a lot of photographers. I was trying to figure out what that was. I feel like you get glimpses of it, like in the scene in Sri Lanka, where he’s photographing those children, and he’s so lovely with them.
I wanted to bring that up, the moment when he’s with the children and he takes the photo of himself to show the children that the camera won’t hurt them.
It’s really nice, right? I wanted to identify that thing that made him really different. I wanted to bring a little bit of awareness to the risk journalists take in war zones, because I think people are ignorant of that a little bit. I wanted to create a platform where Tim’s work can live and be seen and appreciated. I also wanted to continue what interested Tim, about young men in war and, it’s kind of politically incorrect to say this, why war is so compelling and even attractive to young men. That is true in this society, in many societies around the world. It’s not just a massive manipulation by the military industrial complex, it really is a very ancient thing. I wanted to understand that and Tim did as well.
You mentioned the risks journalists take, but it was interesting to see, visually, how Tim’s interest went beyond violent images of a war.
He realized that combat is very dramatic, but it’s repetitive and uninteresting. The most interesting things that happen in combat are a little more subtle, they’re a little more emotional. He understood that. That was actually the true subject he was pursuing out of “Restrepo.”
Do you see other journalists, or photographers, seeing your film and thinking a little more deeply about what they do?
I hope so. I think there are probably a number of young photographers who rush out to war zones and think that the ultimate photo is of a guy shooting a gun. You know, I’ve fallen prey to that way of thinking. Hopefully this film will alter that a little bit. His story is so tragic and so poignant that, unfortunately, it became a perfect explanation for the necessity for having better medical training for journalists. He didn’t just get killed in a war zone – he died of a wound that didn’t have to be fatal. Chris Hondros, he was hit in the head with shrapnel. There’s nothing anyone could have done to save him. With Tim, he just bled out in the course of five minutes. There’s things that could have been done and nobody knew how to do them.
How has looking back on Tim’s life and work changed your own view of journalism?
I immediately decided to stop war reporting after he got killed. So that’s probably the most obvious change. He also opened my mind a little bit about how to be more engaged and open in the world.
“Which Way is the Frontline From Here?” airs on HBO on Thursday, April 18, at 8 p.m.