“Occupation
controls everything in your life,” says Palestinian cameraman
Naji Dana. “To be honest, occupation creates hatred.”
Dana is one of three cameramen—one Jewish, two Palestinian—to be interviewed in Primetime War II (2002), an important sequel to the award-winning Primetime War (1998).
The fast-paced, 52-minute documentary is a testament to the journalistic instincts and sheer chutzpah of co-producers Noam Shalev and Yosi Leon, who follow the three cameramen into Jerusalem, Jenin, Ramallah (during one of the sieges on Arafat’s compound), Bethlehem (during the Israel Defense Forces’ reoccupation of the city), and Hebron (during and after an IDF takeover of the city).
Alon Bernstein, the Israeli Associated Press cameraman featured in the first film, is brought back for more interviewing. Still on the job as a cameraman sent to cover dangerous conflicts and high-level political meetings, Bernstein has grown more desperate, miserable and angry at the level of violence that now swirls around him. An Israeli Jew, Bernstein is wracked with concern for the safety of his family, and his more visible sympathies toward the Palestinians in the first film have begun to fade.
As in the first documentary, Primetime War II, presents a unique lens through which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be viewed. Through this particular lens, the conflict is, in essence, shaped by the cameramen who sometimes provoke (accidentally or intentionally) the kinds of sensationalistic events they are expected to cover.
As cameraman Yosi Leon and director Noam Shalev discovered while following the two cameramen around from 1997-1998, the strongest determining factors that appear to influence media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict revolve around the pressure to be the first on the scene; to film the most sensationalistic footage; and to capture the kinds of eye-catching images that make the evening news. Sent to news outlets like CNN, BBC, Reuters and AP, the images are then carefully culled and edited to bring the region’s freshest battles and human horrors to the world’s television viewers.
This unsettling
process of filming and selectively editing the region’s latest violence
is an essentially perverse portion of the forces that continue to fuel
the very nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ultimately, the role of the media in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is brought into stark relief by both Primetime War and the slightly
less engaging Primetime War II, two films which should be de
rigeur viewing at journalism schools everywhere. These kinds of eye-opening
lessons in media machinations are rarely so well demonstrated.
For more information about Primetime War I and II, including distribution and sales, visit Highlight Films at http://www.highlight.co.il, or send e-mail to main@highlight.co.il.
Reviewed
by Silja J.A. Talvi
11.11.02
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