The war correspondent, 46' film for a dual screen,
Lunds KonstHall,
29th São Paulo Biennial, 2010-2011
The War Correspondent is a many-faceted meditation on war and the image of war in the news media and the entertainment industry. The narrative is pieced together from a richly varied repository of material from illustrated newspapers, a mixture of animation, films and the Internet. It narrates part of the life of the supposedly first war correspondent, William Russell, who covered the Crimean War (1854-1856).
The War Correspondent, a two-screen film essay, is a multifaceted meditation on the representation of war in both news media and the entertainment industry. Its narrative is assembled from a richly diverse archive of materials — illustrated newspapers, animation, film, and the Internet — beginning with the emergence of modern war reporting.
The video recounts episodes from the life of William Howard Russell, often regarded as the first war correspondent, who covered the Crimean War (1854–1856) for The Illustrated London News and The Times. His vivid and unflinching reports exposed the severe conditions faced by British soldiers, revealing the realities of war to the public for the first time. These accounts profoundly shaped public opinion in Britain and directly inspired Florence Nightingale’s mission to the Crimea, which in turn led to the invention of modern nursing and major reforms in military medicine.
The film also addresses the origins of propaganda, exploring how the early media sought to control and aestheticize public perception. It reflects on the work of Roger Fenton, whose carefully staged photographs of the Crimean War — including the infamous “Valley of the Shadow of Death” — exemplify the tension between documentation and fabrication.
As both a vehicle for information and ideological influence, and as a form of historical record, the newspaper serves as the film’s point of departure. As the narrative unfolds, the film traces how war has been represented and used — simultaneously as a spectacle of entertainment and as a catalyst for awareness and social transformation. The War Correspondent moves across media and time, alternating between moments of aestheticisation and fictionalization, and others that evoke objectivity and documentary immediacy.
