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Don McCullin worked as the star photographer on The Sunday Times from
1966 to 1983, when it was widely acknowledged to be at the forefront of
global photojournalism. He covered wars and humanitarian disasters on
virtually every continent. His work has stood the test of time, evidenced
by the fact that ten of his books are currently in print.
But there is
a dimension to Don’s work that transcends photojournalism. The way he
sees the world is very rare; his vision is distinctive and insightful
even when trained on the supposedly mundane. The wounded people he
photographs are not all on battlefields. Through Don’s eyes we come to
understand that the thousand-yard stare of the shell-shocked American
soldier in Vietnam, is a cousin to the despair on the face of the
destitute old lady in London’s Chapel Market. Like the visionary William
Blake, who saw the world around him with a hidden part of the spectrum,
Don sees differently.
With
extensive input from the Sir Harold Evans, the editor of the Sunday Times
from 1967-81, our film not only explores Don’s life and work but also how
the ethos of journalism changed during his career. Using the Sunday Times
as an example, we compare the strictly ‘hands off’ approach of proprietors
like Lord Thompson - who took pride in the fact that he didn’t allow
commercial considerations to censor his editors’ from printing what they
wanted - to how the newspaper’s independent character changed once it was
taken over by Rupert Murdoch, to how the pursuit of advertising revenue
became paramount, and with it, the inevitable obsession with fashion,
status and celebrity. |
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Our made-for-cinema documentary shows how Don
McCullin created some of the latter twentieth-century’s most iconic images of
man's inhumanity to man. He brought the impact and reality of human conflict to
the general reader, going on war assignments sometimes with only twenty rolls
of film. He was shooting with a respect for image now disappearing from the
digital age; and we have shot our film on 16mm in
order to compliment his work.
The birth of
this film came out a desire to document the life and work of an
extraordinary and charismatic person, whose work in the field of journalism was
so innovative and unique of it’s time it has gone on to shape the way in which
newsworthy stories are bought to the masses today.
This is
the story of moments in time that can never be replicated; but with the
assistance of amazing archive footage and copies of the Sunday Times unseen for
fifty years, we go on a journey with him and explore his pioneering work and
we show the audience the lengths to which Don went to taken some of the
most important pictures of our time.
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Why We Need Your Support
We started this project independently, and we want to remain so.
Your investment will allow us to not compromise the
film’s message by having to accommodate traditional funders.
So we have self-funded where we could and we’ve created this film through
monumental personal commitment to the story, and the generous in-kind donations
of time and skills from industry professionals.
We want to enter our film into high-profile festivals, but to do this we need
support in the final stages of post-production.
What
Your Support Means
We need 75,000 dollars to
complete the film. The money will pay for expensive clearance rights for archive footage
(some of it unseen for fifty years) and music rights and final
post-production costs.
Thank
you,
Jacqui
Morris, Director
