Iconic Capa Spanish war photo a fake

[caesar novus]

Spanish experts, including those organized by Capa's brother have carefully judged his famous "Falling Militiaman" as staged for the purpose of partisan propaganda. They do not comment on the veracity of his other famous war shots such as from WW2, Palestine, Indochina:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl...T8ZXXAD99K6MCO0 What must have been behind the long suspicion is the stereotyped stagey look of the thing - like what a child might think getting shot is like rather than a doctor or an eyewitness to similar things.

 

For an earlier contrary opinion, go to the temple of loony victimology (thanks again my dear emperor Constantine)... the ever affable and reasonable seeming PBS from it's American Masters documentary http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/ep...ove-and-war/47/ Read the tail end of their conclusion; it just reeks of bias, ideology, and the opposite of fact-weighing judgement.

Edited July 23, 2009 by caesar novus

[sylla]

Spanish experts, including those organized by Capa's brother have carefully judged his famous "Falling Militiaman" as staged for the purpose of partisan propaganda. They do not comment on the veracity of his other famous war shots such as from WW2, Palestine, Indochina:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl...T8ZXXAD99K6MCO0 What must have been behind the long suspicion is the stereotyped stagey look of the thing - like what a child might think getting shot is like rather than a doctor or an eyewitness to similar things.

 

For an earlier contrary opinion, go to the temple of loony victimology (thanks again my dear emperor Constantine)... the ever affable and reasonable seeming PBS from it's American Masters documentary http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/ep...ove-and-war/47/ Read the tail end of their conclusion; it just reeks of bias, ideology, and the opposite of fact-weighing judgement.

Thx for so well balanced posting, CN.

Being utterly ignorant in this area, my general impression is that the issue of the authenticity of the Falling Militiaman is still unsettled.

The mere fact that this pic remained essentially unquestioned for decades makes you wonder about the reliability of our cultural perception.

However, such authenticity would only affect our memory on Capa's personal honesty and abilities; for the iconic nature of this image, that is hardly relevant.

After all, the image itself is still beautiful and expressive.

Besides, nobody disputes the historicity of the facts; Borrell Garcia did die that day, the same as thousands of Spaniards across their Civil War.