When asked about the artistic nuances of the great war photographer and friend Frank Capa Henri Cartier Bresson aid he was not a photographer but an adventurer. The same may well be said for Eddie Adams a fearless war photographer who after having seen action in over a dozen went on to the much more sedate world of portrait work featuring movie stars, presidents and a pope for the ultra mediocre Sunday supplement, Parade and nude centerfolds for a racy challenger to Playboy, Hustler magazine. With the fun aspect aside it is more than evident that while he might have done photography for a living it is in his adventurous and courageous side we find the man in full.
Eddie Adams more than likely took the most famous photograph of the Viet Nam War; the execution of an enemy combatant on a city street. Unsparing in its graphic depiction and burned into the consciousness of a generation Unlikely Weapon gives us the heart and soul behind the eye in the abrasive personality of Adams. Not the easiest person in the world to get along with Adams in interviews had no time for pretense, was driven to be the best while displaying a self effacing gallows humor along the way of a man who "has seen more weeping than you could understand". Those that knew him (Jennings, Brokaw, Safer) as well as fellow photographers saw through the abrasiveness and they shower him with nothing but respect and awe as well as feelings of friendship in interviews. Adams gave back in a big way, helping the maligned commander he photographed to get into the US when the government wouldn't even lift a finger as well as set up free schools of photography.
Eddie clearly deserved his down time snapping popes and playmates. It is more than fitting he should decompress after what he witnessed but for the sake of the documentary his latter day assignments pale in comparison re-enforcing Cartier Bresson's point all the more; first and foremost Eddie Adams was one courageous adventurer first, a photographer second.
Eddie Adams more than likely took the most famous photograph of the Viet Nam War; the execution of an enemy combatant on a city street. Unsparing in its graphic depiction and burned into the consciousness of a generation Unlikely Weapon gives us the heart and soul behind the eye in the abrasive personality of Adams. Not the easiest person in the world to get along with Adams in interviews had no time for pretense, was driven to be the best while displaying a self effacing gallows humor along the way of a man who "has seen more weeping than you could understand". Those that knew him (Jennings, Brokaw, Safer) as well as fellow photographers saw through the abrasiveness and they shower him with nothing but respect and awe as well as feelings of friendship in interviews. Adams gave back in a big way, helping the maligned commander he photographed to get into the US when the government wouldn't even lift a finger as well as set up free schools of photography.
Eddie clearly deserved his down time snapping popes and playmates. It is more than fitting he should decompress after what he witnessed but for the sake of the documentary his latter day assignments pale in comparison re-enforcing Cartier Bresson's point all the more; first and foremost Eddie Adams was one courageous adventurer first, a photographer second.