tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post3025915740516409365..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Russell Lee: Everything Must GoUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5747343937544219922010-09-29T06:06:57.393-07:002010-09-29T06:06:57.393-07:00The "spectacle" you describe in your sec...The "spectacle" you describe in your second paragraph is indeed the shocking aspect of the set. Out of a desire to think well of others, people often try to pretend that behavior like that isn't possible, that it's just something that happens in the theater or in movies, where you can confront it from the audience and deal with it symbolically. Then you see it recorded in documentary photographs like these, which cut through sharply and it shocks the system.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-73594046786059635652010-09-28T01:22:47.165-07:002010-09-28T01:22:47.165-07:00Curtis, yes, impossible. (In fact as we are curren...Curtis, yes, impossible. (In fact as we are currently in the throes of trying to save house and home, this came under the heading of a bit too close for comfort.)<br /><br />The coldest aspect of the Sparlin sale scene to my eyes was not so much the literal (and plainly tragic) loss of everything material by the dispossessed family but the spectacle of their public humiliation as made particular and specific in the various physical expressions of distance-keeping on the part of the spectators and "speculators" (howdy, neighbors).<br /><br />The top shots that precede the narrative instance are far cooler, of course. I feel Lee's sense of historical irony at its sharpest in those images of the choice farm lands offered for sale in a starkly lunar Iron River and a perhaps even starker earthly Pine barren.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20045146532069999352010-09-27T06:10:48.260-07:002010-09-27T06:10:48.260-07:00You just wonder about how photographing these scen...You just wonder about how photographing these scenes must have affected Lee. They're heartbreaking and shocking and you couldn't possibly stay "uninvolved".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com