Enemy Image

Summary

Enemy Image is a 2005 documentary film by Mark Daniels about the portrayal of warfare in television news.[1][2][3] Narrated by Jessy Joe Walsh, the film includes archive footage of Peter Jennings, Morley Safer, Jon Alpert, Dan Rather, and Bernard Birnbaum in their news reporting on the various conflicts.

Enemy Image
Directed byMark Daniels
Written byMark Daniels
Produced by
  • Benedicte Massiet
  • Christine Le Goff
Narrated byJessy Joe Walsh
Cinematography
  • John Hazard
  • Ned Burgess
Edited by
  • Catherine Peix
  • Pascal Vernier
Production
companies
Release date
Running time
93 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageEnglish

Synopsis edit

The film makes note of how the invasion of Iraq lasted 800 hours but produced over 20,000 hours of video, and focuses initially on the Vietnam War as the first war ever televised "live". During this war the American government allowed reporters onto the battlefield with little supervision or control. The documentary follows the way The Pentagon learned from this experience to control access by journalists to battle areas in subsequent wars, through the Invasion of Grenada (where journalists were excluded completely) to the first Gulf War, where news packages were provided by the military, to the embedded journalism of the Iraq War. The theme of the film is the progressive tightening of control by the US military on the contact journalists have with soldiers and civilians in the war zone, in order that (as the film says at the end) "never again will television raise the moral and political questions that face a people at war."

Screenings edit

The film premiered October 14, 2005 at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival,[4] and aired on Canadian television later in 2005.[5]

Reception edit

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Mascarenhas, Alan (August 16, 2005). "The Cutting Edge: Enemy Image". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  2. ^ Carlyon, Patrick (August 16, 2005). "Full metal straitjacket". Vol. 123, no. 6483. Newsweek. p. 79. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  3. ^ staff (August 10, 2005). "TV programs worth watching: Enemy Image (SBS 8.30pm Tuesday) is this week's Cutting Edge documentary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  4. ^ Hernandez, Eugene (October 21, 2005). "Exploring Factual Film and TV at Sheffield's International Doc Fest". Indiewire. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  5. ^ "Enemy Image" airing schedule at the CBC website

External links edit

  • Enemy Image at IMDb  
  • Enemy Image at Top Documentary Films