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Three Weeks in Japan A Letter from Japan: The Photographs
of John Swope |
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John Swope’s camera is astoundingly
delicate. It can turn the geometry of the scene into a phase of light, or
light equidistant to illuminate the scene, it can record an actor or an
actress (Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, James Stewart, Mary Martin) at rest
or relaxed or preparing, or it can find in the same face the complete role it
has in view (Marlon Brando as Mark Anthony, Henry Fonda as Mr. Roberts), and
both views are equally revealing and new. Lt. (jg) Swope went into Japan among the
first. He thought his camera (at first, among the freed prisoners of war)
might not realize on film the experience of the moment he was part of. That
is a touching admission in his lengthy, detailed and eloquent Letter from
Japan accompanying his photographs (turned down by Bennett Cerf). Swope in countryside and villages shows
Japan its own countenance. In bombed-out cities and towns, the ruination of
its labors. In the Chinese forced laborers, the state of prisoners under the
regime. In the prisoners of war, a nation of free men about to shake off the
trammels of servitude. Three weeks in Japan, from the end of
August into September, 1945. |
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