Industry and Photography 1979

Directed by Harun Farocki

Farocki frequently chooses a single news photo as his pretext. In his film he explains convincingly that 'learning from images' is not so much a question of having power over the image or a consistent subject-position towards the image, which would allow the filmmaker access to complete knowledge. Instead he insists on pursuing photography's separation of reference and discourse, by proving this to be a separation of the subject as well as a separation within the subject itself. [...] - Thomas Elsaesser