 Staged, schmaged... Falling Soldier is still a great pic. Pic: Arnd Wiegmann
November 11, 2008 9:25 PM
By Angus MacSwan
LONDON - It is one of the most famous yet controversial war photographs of all time.
Now an exhibition in London of photographer Robert Capa's work sheds new light on his picture of a Spanish Civil War militiaman at the moment he is shot dead.
"The Falling Soldier" picture taken on the Cordoba front in 1936 shows the white-shirted militiaman reeling backwards, his arm flung out as he drops his rifle.
It brought instant fame to the Hungarian-born Capa and came to symbolise the struggle against Fascism.
But over the years, questions have been raised over its veracity, with some suggesting it was staged. Capa himself gave few clues about the actual circumstances in which it was taken.
The exhibition at the Barbican Center, called This is War - Robert Capa at Work, gathers all the known images taken by Capa that day in September 1936 and by his companion Gerda Taro.
It also features more of his work in Spain, pictures
from the Sino-Japanese War in 1938 and US troops
landing on the Normandy beaches on D-Day in 1944,
as well as original magazines and Capa's own notes
and letters.
The collection was curated by Capa biographer
Richard Whelan, who died last year. Whelan had set
out to answer the skeptics about The Falling Soldier,
Kate Bush, Head of Galleries for the Barbican, told
Reuters.
"He went back to the archives and he found a lot
more negatives of this particular moment. He
unearthed more material that has helped conceptualise
the falling soldier image."
Whether or not the picture was posed was notably
raised by Phillip Knightley in his 1975 book on war
correspondents The First Casualty.
He quoted a reporter, O.D. Gallagher, who said Capa
had told him it was staged when they shared a hotel
room in Spain. Whelan believed that account was false.
The captions of magazines which ran the picture at
the time stated the incident occurred during a Republican
assault, first in the French magazine Vu in September
1936 then in US magazine Life in July 1937.
"Robert Capa's camera catches a Spanish soldier the
instant he is dropped by a bullet in his head in front
of Cordoba," Life said - the caption writer apparently
mistaking the soldier's cap tassel for a shard of exploding
skull.
The truth may lie somewhere in between, it seems.
The 40 frames were gathered from negatives from
cut-up contact sheets. They show a group of militiamen,
including the later victim, on a hill near Cerro Muriano
lining up for the camera, leaping over a gully, and taking
aim with their rifles.
But, Bush said, these shots do appear to be posed.
"This isn't the heat of battle, it is not a moment when
they are under attack. They are taken in a way that
suggests they are playing to the camera to some
degree," she said.
The theory is that during this activity a rebel sniper
picked off a militiaman, believed to be one Federico
Borrell Garcia, right in front of Capa's Leica lens.
"The picture is obviously of someone dying. You couldn't
possibly act that pose," Bush said.
A second soldier was also photographed as he was shot.
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