The image is seized in our collective unconscious. The photo, often called “napalm girl”, shows nine years Kim Phuc Run naked and scream on a road to Trang Bang, in South Vietnam. His body was burned by the flammable dispersion of a incendiary bomb. Only a few moments before, the pilots had mistakenly decreased their fiery payload on allied positions, seriously injuring civilians. The scene is so essential – a voiceless girl and four other children fleeing pain and panic in front of men in uniform; A dark sky that turns with clouds of apocalyptic bombs – which he has endured for decades as an anti -war icon.
In recent weeks, however, the origin of the image has become the basis of a royal battle. This battle mainly opposed the Associated Press and a quota of photojournalists and correspondents to a group of independent filmmakers. Their disagreement was caused by allegations made in a new documentary, The silt, Who had his world premiere on Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival. The film claims to prove that the old photojournalist ap Nick Ut, Which for more than half a century has been credited with having taken the photo of the “napalm girl”, has not really taken the image. Representatives of the AP, and ut himself, vehemently refute this assertion, although none, to this day, saw the film.
The film claims that the 1972 photography was rather produced by a silt: a Vietnamese cameraman working for NBC at the time, which submitted its unclear film on an independent basis to the Associated Press Office of Saigon.
The AP, according to the documentary, published the film, selecting an image which was immediately recognized as extraordinary. The service printed what would become the famous executive and sent it to the Nowswires. The photo would take place in newspapers around the world. The brother-in-law of the Stringer, who says in the film that he was also affiliated with NBC at the time, insisted that he returned to the office the next day and received fenger costs of $ 20 for the Unique frame (as it was common), with an impression of the image.
Nick UT received the image of the image and finally won a Pulitzer Prize. But in the estimation of filmmakers, he was more likely to take by Nguyen Thanh heard, A combat photographer trained in the United States and director of photography who, as we can see in a photograph shown in the film, had also been there the day the image was made on Highway 1, in the Village of Trang Bang.
The resulting photographic crash have been intense. On the one hand is the Associated Press; A group of highly respected veteran journalists who covered the war in Southeast Asia; And Nick Ut (then 21, now 73), a heroic figure in Vietnam and a long-standing resident of the United States whose lawyer tells me is considering a dispute. “I am confident,” explains the lawyer James Hornstein, “That we have a solid argument for defamation. In our opinion, this did not happen. On January 15, the AP published a 22 -page review of the premise behind the film. The report includes the testimonies of seven witnesses who were on the road that day or in the office of Saigon d’Ap, who all declared to the press organization that they believed that the UT had taken the photo. The PA investigation presents everything, models of smoke and wind that day at its labeling system in the dark room. His conclusion: “In the absence of convincing new evidence of the contrary, the AP has no reason to believe that anyone other than UT took the photo.” (UT refused a request to question for this article, but in a declaration of VF said he confirmed that the “memory” of his AP colleagues was exact and “is certain that he took the photo and was properly credited to do this”).
On the other side of the debate is the filmmaker Bao Nguyen, The American Vietnamese director who did last year The biggest night of pop; Carl Robinson, the editor -in -chief in service on the day of the bombing; conflict photographer Gary Knight, The co -founder of the Agence VII Photo as well as the executive narrator and producer of the film – which, as well as Terre Lichstein, Fiona Turner, And The van, Gathered mounds of evidence in search of the verification of the thesis of the film; a team of legal photographic medicine; And Nghe, 86, who, in the camera interviews, provides his own photo report – only for his paternity to him.
The day the photo was captured, said Nghe in the film, UT was the only person on the scene with a camera that was officially on AP staff. According to Nghe, Horst Faas, the head of the AP photography in Saigon, who died in 2012 – “The Big Guy”, as Nghe calls him in the film – Nghe’s photo created in Ut. The exchange of credits, in the opinion of Nghe, was “intentional. I knew right away. A source familiar with the protocol AP said that silts would give the office their film, would obtain costs and on the occasion of obtaining their names attached to their photos.
Here is what happened, according to Robinson, who led the photo office that day. “I have been carrying this burden for 50 years and I have never become public,” he said in the film. “In other words, Nick did not really take this famous photo.”
When Robinson saw the image developed, showing the children running, he says he was bristling. His first reaction, he said to the camera, was: “We really can’t use this”, given the sensitivity to show a child without clothes. “The full front image came from a silt. I checked his name. There was a photo of Nick Ut who showed the girl passing through a lateral angle, and that was actually my choice, because it was discreet. When Robinson’s boss, Faas, came back from his lunch break, he was shown the impression of Kim Phuc along the way. Robinson says, “He saw this, and he was like …slam– That’s what we are going. There was no doubt about it. It was his call. And he was the boss.
“And then I started writing legend. I arrived at the end. I had about four lines. You put “STF /” for a staff photographer and for a silt, you put “Str /” and the name. And I took a look at the notebook ” – to find the spelling of the name of the Stringer -” and Horst Faas, which was held right next to me, “said:” Nick Ut. Do it “Nick UT”. Do it “personal”. Do it nick ut. And these were with me the rest of my life, these words…. I always felt bad about this all my life that I did not have, that I was not courageous enough. “”
The probable photographer, he continues, “was an unknown silt. He was not part of our regular silt army. It was not a name I knew, so I didn’t remember it.
Photojournalist David Burnett, Then 25, was also on the site when Kim Phuc appeared. He refused to participate in the film. Its version of events, as linked to the AP survey, is incompatible with the idea that another photographer has taken the key frame: “Burnett saw UT … sprint in front of the others and start taking photos then that Kim Phuc and other children have emerged from smoke…. “There is nothing that has ever been made to think that Nick did not take this photo” [Burnett] said. “Besides, Burnett, like UT, put his film in the Darkroom office that day. As Burnett would write it in a 2012 play for The Washington Post, He remembers the scene: “Darkroom has advanced Nick Ut, holding a small still weighted copy of his best image: an impression of 5 by 7 of Kim Phuc with his brothers to escape burning napalm. We were the first eyes to see this image; It would be another full day before the rest of the world would see it on practically the page of all newspapers 1. ‘”
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