{"id":79353,"date":"2022-02-13T12:38:56","date_gmt":"2022-02-13T07:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/israeli-filmmaker-ran-tal-on-berlinales-1341-frames-of-love-and-war\/"},"modified":"2022-02-13T12:38:56","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T07:08:56","slug":"israeli-filmmaker-ran-tal-on-berlinales-1341-frames-of-love-and-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/israeli-filmmaker-ran-tal-on-berlinales-1341-frames-of-love-and-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Filmmaker Ran Tal on Berlinale’s ‘1341 Frames of Love and War’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ahead of Sunday\u2019s world premiere of documentary \u201c1341 Frames of Love and War,\u201d which plays in Berlinale Special, Variety<\/em> spoke to Israeli writer\/director Ran Tal about the film and its subject, Israeli war photographer Micha Bar-Am.<\/p>\n

In some ways \u201cFrames\u201d continues Tal\u2019s interest in Israeli history evident in his previous work, \u201cWhat If? Ehud Barak on War and Peace,\u201d which centered on the former prime minister of Israel. Bar-Am was born in Berlin in 1930, but grew up in what became Israel, and across a five decade-long career as a photographer he documented many of the major episodes \u2013 in particular the wars \u2013 in the life of the young country, founded in 1948. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do two films: one about a player in history [\u2026] and the second one should be about the witness,\u201d Tal says. The filmmaker got in touch with Bar-Am, who showed him his archive of more than half a million negatives, stored in his basement in Tel Aviv. \u201cIt was clear to me immediately that I wanted to spend a lot of time in this basement,\u201d Tal says. \u201cIt took me three years to assemble the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bar-Am and his wife Orna were \u201cvery friendly and honest, and opened their hearts, their house and the archive for me, but it took time to build this kind of trust, because I set as one of my conditions that: I want open [access to the] archive and I want to use any image I want. You don\u2019t get to see the film until the end. You need to trust me,\u201d Tal says. <\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\u201c1341 Frames of Love and War\u201d<\/span><\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Micha Bar-Am<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The film is almost entirely composed of the photographs that Bar-Am took over his career, and is accompanied by the conversations Tal had with the couple about the photographs and their recollection of the events and their feelings about them. Alongside the shots of the many military conflicts that Bar-Am covered during his career are intimate images of family life. <\/p>\n

By only using Bar-Am\u2019s still images the viewers see events through his eyes, and \u201csee what he saw [\u2026] you can understand his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bar-Am belonged to the elite group of photographers at Magnum photo agency, formed by Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson among others, and his work appeared in some of the most prestigious titles in the world, including the New York Times, Time magazine, Stern and Paris Match. Unlike the throw-away images of the Instagram era, Bar-Am\u2019s photographs \u201ctry to tell you about complicated situations,\u201d Tal says, and he was \u201cinspired by that as a filmmaker.\u201d <\/p>\n

The conversations between Bar-Am and his wife Orna add \u201canother layer to the film,\u201d portraying the relationship between the couple. \u201cOrna is very important to the Bar-Am project. Micha is the great artist and has been everywhere, but she is totally part of the game. She was always there: she was picking the photographs, she is the one that is creating the exhibitions many times, responsible for catalogues.\u201d She has strong opinions about the events and ethical issues, so \u201cit was important to have her voice and use these two characters to build new layers\u201d within the film. <\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\u201c1341 Frames of Love and War\u201d<\/span><\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Micha Bar-Am<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The film is principally about the photographer, but Israel itself plays an important role. \u201cI think all my work is, in many ways, about the Israeli story, the Israeli project \u2013 to try to understand it from the inside, often from the bottom up,\u201d Tal says. \u201cIt is about Micha, it is about photography, it\u2019s about war, it\u2019s about post-trauma, memory, age,\u201d but also about the Israeli experience and history. \u201cIt\u2019s not about Israel, but Israel is always there.\u201d <\/p>\n

There is a progression in the film from the confidence and optimism of the early decades in Bar-Am\u2019s career, to the doubt and questioning exhibited later, especially concerning the role of the Israel Defense Forces. Eventually, he stopped taking photographs altogether. \u201cIt came out in the recording of the talks. I really wanted to understand why he stopped. It is a really dramatic decision for an artist to stop making art, and in Micha\u2019s case to stop taking images.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tal is now working on an installation based on the documentary that will open in Tel Aviv in June. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ahead of Sunday\u2019s world premiere of documentary \u201c1341 Frames of Love and War,\u201d which plays in Berlinale Special, Variety spoke to Israeli writer\/director Ran Tal about the film and its subject, Israeli war photographer Micha Bar-Am. In some ways \u201cFrames\u201d continues Tal\u2019s interest in Israeli history evident in his previous work, \u201cWhat If? Ehud Barak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":79354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,3,105,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/1644736137_Israeli-Filmmaker-Ran-Tal-on-Berlinales-1341-Frames-of-Love.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79353"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}