Why concentrate this critique on photography, when other media are equally ineffective? Because, Sontag argues, “all images that display the violation of an attractive body are, to a certain degree, pornographic.” Looking at war photography is gawking at traffic accidents, hoping to see blood and bone.

But, of course, so is reading sensational news stories and watching television news. And whatever “the artist’s skill of eye and hand,” a painting depicting suffering remains art, an aesthetic object that we look at in a gallery without concern for the actual events of whatever battle it depicts. At least the photograph — presuming that it actually depicts “the violation of an attractive body,” as most war photographs do not — is presented as news.

And how is one to respond to war? Is it more effective to take a camera into Sarajevo and use it to argue for intervention, or to take up residence there for the purpose of staging Waiting for Godot by candlelight, as did Sontag? How many people were moved by the photography of Christopher Morris, who evacuated himself from the besieged city after having a breakdown? How many were moved by Sontag’s production of Godot?

There is a sense in Regarding the Pain of Others that Sontag is backing away from some of the claims of On Photography, that she discovered in Sarajevo what a glib and facetious stance is deconstruction in the face of destruction. In the concluding chapters, this becomes explicit, as she self-consciously points to two of On Photography’s arguments and argues against them.

“To speak of reality becoming a spectacle is a breathtaking provincialism,” she admits. “It universalizes the viewing habits of a small, educated population living in a rich part of the world, where news has been converted into entertainment … some people will do anything to keep themselves from being moved.”

This epiphany arrives only when the Manhattan essayist goes to live in Sarajevo. It’s a pity that Sontag didn’t leave her rich part of the world behind more often.

http://ajsomerset.wordpress.com/2010/...

This was a really quick, rather interesting read. Sontag's essential argument is that the saturation of images of violence through the modern media has begun to inure us to the pain of other human beings. She traces the history of war photography, network decisions about which footage to air, etc. and makes a rather compelling and humane argument. I think it's just about the perfect length, I believe I read it in a couple of evenings and then passed it on to my mom. ( )

In this book, Sontag demonstrates her mastery of the art of eloquent outrage, an art that requires subtlety and restraint, but also an art that, when done well, changes the way you see things every day. She argues that while photographs of devastation, whether from war or natural disasters or human cruelty, are often regarded as "truth," in reality nothing could be more deceiving. When we see a haunting image of some nameless person suffering, our heart goes out to them, but it takes our minds away from more insidious implications. -Emily

This small collection of essays, which explores the ways in which images of war and suffering can effect a populace, was the last thing Sontag published before she died in 2004. In it, she goes through a series of depictions of war and examines what each meant to the intended audience, to the artist, and to posterity.

Read the rest of my review of Regarding the Pain of Others on my blog, The Nerd is the Word.

http://nerdword.blogspot.com/2006/10/... ( )

This is a powerful and profound book that forces us to rethink our relationship to the steady stream of horrific images of human suffering from locales both nearby and exotic that have increasingly saturated our lives as the mass media have developed over the past two centuries. Sontag rejects simple notions about what it means to, through the media, be specatators to the horrible suffering of others. (E.g., that images of suffering make us callous and indifferent to suffering or move us to a genuine sympathy with others.) Rather, she calls for what might be calld an ethics of spectatorship that requires us to 1) move beyond mere sympathy to analyze our relationship to the suffering we see, and to stop it if we can; and 2) to acknowledge the irreducible, incomparable quality of the suffering of others -- the uniqueness of suffering must be acknowledged, as well as the impossiblity of those who do not suffer to fully understand. ( )