La ética de la representación en tres documentales de Trisha Ziff

Abstract

The article examines the documentary work of British–Mexican filmmaker Trisha Ziff. It focuses on three films: Chevolution (2008), an examination of the iconic image of Che Guevara by Cuban photographer Korda; La maleta Mexicana/The Mexican Suitcase (2012), about a trove of negatives taken by war photographers Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour during the Spanish Civil War and found in Mexico City decades later and El hombre que vio demasiado/The Man Who Saw Too Much (2016), a documentary that follows the life and work of Mexican tabloid photographer Enrique Metinides. The article show how Ziff examines issues around the moral and legal implications in the way images are disseminated and used, the power of photography to evoke and shape historical memory, and the shock value of images of violence. It argues that the three documentaries are valuable contributions to an archaeology of modernity’s visual media, looking back at a recent period where illustrated journalism was the foremost medium of information. Taking a cue from Cornell Capa’s notion of the ‘concerned photographer’, the article shows how, underpinning Ziff’s documentaries, the notion of the ethical mission of the photographer in an age increasingly dominated by the moving image, information overload and historical amnesia is paramount.