There are moments in each of our lives that change us forever and often what we do with those moments also changes those around us. I have noticed that theme running through many of the films that I have viewed this week at the Sedona Film Festival. A decision to have an "inconsequential kiss" or to attempt to have "meaningless sex" changes everything for those involved and others in their lives. Choosing to become obsessed with a pursuit and letting it overshadow all of your other relationships. Taking a picture, pulling a trigger, picking up a baby. All of these acts can chagne you forever.
This morning I "met" a photographer who changed the world, his own life and the life of one of the people who's picture he took all in the 1/500th of a second. "Eddie Adams is best known for his photograph of a Saigon police chief, General Nygoc Loan, shooting a Vietcong guerrilla point black. Some say that photograph ended the Vietnam war. The photo brought Eddie fame and a Pulitzer, but Eddie was haunted by the man he had vilified. He would say, 'Two lives were destroyed that day, the victim's and the general.'" In reality that photo also changed, if not destroyed, Eddie, too. It's a tremendous documentary about the life of one of the greatest war photographers in history. But also a many who was a mentor to hundreds of photographers, a multi-demensional artist who has shot war photos in 13 wars, centerfolds for Penthouse, virtually every movie star in the last 20 years, kings and dictators, presidents and saints. His body of work is incredible and this film does a great job of chronicling it. On the note of changing lives, director Susan Morgan Cooper's first credit in the film industry is a bit part as "Buns" in the 1975 Clint Eastwood film "The Eiger Sanction." I'm glad she changed directions for her life and has produced this excellent film.
