I’m not a big fan of the online magazine Salon – it’s so knee-jerk liberal that it’s offensive to thoughtful people, preachy to the choir of loyal leftists, and easily dismissed by conservatives. But today’s edition includes three interesting pieces.
The first – prompted by the sickly funny and probably doctored photograph of a solider with two Arab kids holding a sign that reads “Lcpl Boudreaux killed my Dad th[en] he knocked up my sister!” – is an excellent primer on how trust in pictures has eroded with digital photography and the tools to manipulate it.
This is a particularly important issue in documentary film, although not necessarily because of the manipulation of images. What amazes me is that some people still take a documentary at face value. Skepticism is still a virtue.
Also in today’s Salon is a lengthy evaluation of Klaus Kinski and an interview with a porn filmmaker about the recent adult-film-industry HIV scare and condoms.
