The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Eddie Adams · a single photograph of 1 February 1968, made in a street in Saigon on the second day of the Tet Offensive by Eddie Adams of the Associated Press · black and white, one frame of 35 mm film · the work scored is the photograph as published: the image as the AP distributed it by wire, as front pages printed it on 2 February 1968 and as it is reproduced; the television film of the same act and the later exhibition prints are context, and no single print is the work
Mode
News photography made in the street at close range, distributed by a press agency by wire and printed on front pages the next day
Mythos
The executioner and the bound victim, the arm of judgement without law; the painted line of Goya’s and Manet’s executions, met by the shape of the event rather than built
Phase
One instant, the shot itself; the image as distributed and published on 2 February 1968
Presentation
One frame, black and white, from 35 mm film; no fixed print size
Register
Dread at a single height: shock and recoil, with no second key
Scale
Three figures legible at a few paces, further soldiers and a street behind
Governing Proposition
On 1 February 1968, in a street in Saigon, the chief of the South Vietnamese National Police put a revolver to the head of a bound prisoner and fired, and one frame of 35 mm film held the prisoner’s face at the instant the bullet entered. The wager of the image is the wager of the still photograph itself: that an instant no one could compose, stopped and printed the next morning, can show a killing without law by the state’s own officer, the whole relation of power in one line from a shoulder to a temple, and the face of a death held open for as long as anyone can bear to look.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
On 1 February 1968, the second day of the Tet Offensive, Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the South Vietnamese National Police, shot a prisoner in a street in Saigon. The prisoner was Nguyen Van Lem, a Viet Cong officer known as Bay Lop, and his hands were tied behind him. Eddie Adams, a photographer for the Associated Press, made one frame of black and white 35 mm film at the instant of the shot. The AP distributed it by wire, and on 2 February 1968 it was printed on front pages. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography of 1969 and was World Press Photo of the Year for 1968. The title it goes by is a press and museum label, not Adams’s.
The work scored is the photograph as published: the image as the AP distributed it and as it is reproduced. At the left stands the general, seen from behind, his right arm out and a revolver at the prisoner’s head. The prisoner, in a plaid shirt, is caught at the instant the bullet enters, his eyes narrowed and his mouth pulled. Behind the general, at the left, a soldier winces. The street and its buildings run back behind them, with further soldiers. Three figures are legible. No dimensions belong to the work, since prints and reproductions vary.
The same act was filmed by the NBC cameraman Vo Suu, and the film was broadcast. It is the control against which the still can be measured, and it is not scored. The prints later made for exhibition are context, and so is the title. Adams lived from 1933 to 2004. The general died in 1998, and Adams wrote of him then, in a sentence that is itself part of the image’s record.
Movement II
The image has one law, and it is the line of the arm. Everything in the frame is organised by the vector that runs from the general’s shoulder to the muzzle to the prisoner’s temple, reading left to right toward the face. The two most distant elements are the general’s back, turned to the viewer, unhurried and almost casual in its stance, and the prisoner’s face, the most violent thing in the picture; the line joins them. The soldier at the left leans away from the same line, so that even the witness obeys it. The light is one light and the moment one moment.
The subtractive test can be run on it figure by figure. Without the arm there is no act, only a prisoner in a street. Without the face at the impact the image is a threat, not a killing, and no frame before or after holds that fraction of a second. Without the wincing soldier the act has no witness inside the picture; he is the viewer’s body, flinching. Without the street the killing loses its place: a city at war, in daylight, in public. What yields is the periphery, the buildings, the soldiers behind, the exact width of the frame, which could all be otherwise without loss.
The making is a news photographer’s, at close range and at the speed of an act: being there, staying close, and the reflex that released the shutter at the instant of the shot, which no later skill can supply. The frame holds three figures legibly; the arm and the face are sharp; the exposure keeps the face and the plaid shirt clear against the street. The rest the event and chance gave. The background is untended, the frame edge cuts figures arbitrarily, and the print is a standard wire print. The necessity is the event’s more than an order the maker found, and the coherence is given rather than built: the law is grasped in a glance.
Movement III
In Vo Suu’s film the shot passes in a moment, the body falls, blood runs: it is horrifying, and it is not this image. The still is the one form that holds the instant of death open, the face at the impact, for as long as the viewer can bear to look, and the knowledge of the work is the stopping of that instant. As a painting it would be an invention and would know nothing; as a written account it would be a report. Black and white takes away the colour of the street and holds the image to gesture and face. The form is the medium’s ordinary form, used as any press photograph is used: the photograph knows what it knows because of the shutter more than because of a form its maker shaped.
The elevation is of the dreadful kind. A man is at the threshold of death and the threshold is visible: the face is distorted not by fear but by the impact, and the wince of the bystander repeats it. The response is a held breath and a recoil, and familiarity dulls it more slowly than one would expect. But it is one summit in one frame. There is no second rise and no ground of beauty for the terror to play against, and the street, the light and the figures at the edge are plain reportage. Andreas Gursky’s Rhein II, at 7.5, holds The Sublime at 7.5; this frame stands above it for the force of its one moment, and well below works that rise again and again.
One gesture touches more orders than a single frame usually holds. The state and its law are there in a chief of police killing without trial; war and history in the Tet Offensive and a city fought over; the body and death in the face at the instant; the public and the press in the witness inside the frame, the cameras outside it and the public of the next morning; the city in a street, its buildings and the daylight. They are integrated, because the arm joins them. The family, labour, the sacred and the natural order are absent, and so is any story before or after: the lives of the victim and of the general lie outside the frame.
Movement IV
What the image brings into the open was stated at once by those who saw it in February 1968, and it holds. An ally of the United States, a chief of police, killed a bound prisoner without trial, in the street, in front of the press. The war’s violence was not only the enemy’s. Death by violence is a single instant in a face, which the eye had never seen held still in this way. And the frame’s geometry states the relation of power: one man armed, upright and seen from behind, one man bound and seen full face. These are meanings, not moods.
Its maker charged it with telling half the truth. In Time in 1998, on the general’s death, Adams wrote: “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.” He spent his life saying the frame had wronged the man in it. The frame withholds whatever came before it: accounts of what had happened in the city that day are contested, and the image does not settle them. But the disclosure that holds is not a verdict on the general. It is the condition shown, a bound man killed without law by the state’s own officer, in public, in an allied war. The half truth holds The Unconcealment at the gate, at 8.5, and not above it.
Fifty-eight years of return have not closed the questions. What a photograph tells and what it withholds, of which this is the standing case. What the ethics are of publishing a death, and of the photographer who is there when it comes. How far the image moved American opinion after Tet, a claim often made and disputed by historians. The frame repays a second look as well: the wincing soldier, the general’s unhurried stance, the offset of the two heads. But the image, once seen, is seen, and much of the return is to the debate on photography and war, in which it is the most cited instance.
Movement V
The particular is wholly particular, a named policeman, a named prisoner, a date and a street, and it carries an old figure: the executioner and the victim, the arm of judgement without law, the bound man, the face at the instant of death. Painting had made it. Goya’s The Third of May 1808, at 9.0, holds The Archetypal Deep at 8.9, and Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian, at 8.3, holds it at 8.0; the photograph meets their structure, the armed man, the victim facing, the onlookers, and holds it at 7.9. The structure is found, not built. The archetype is there because the event had that shape and the photographer was in the right place, and nothing in the frame constructs a figure of sacrifice or of redemption, as Goya constructs one.
The inheritance is war photojournalism from Robert Capa onward: the photographer at the front, the hand-held camera, the instant of death attempted. Capa’s The Falling Soldier, whose staging is disputed, stands at the same 8.0 by other axes, and holds The Swerve at 8.2 for making the instant of death its departure. Malcolm Browne’s photograph of a burning monk in 1963 had already put a death in Vietnam on the world’s front pages. The departure here lies in what was shown: a killing by one’s own side, at the instant of the shot, on the front pages of the countries fighting the war, where earlier photographs of the dead had been censored, delayed or shown at a distance. In the medium it is small. The turn was the event’s, the photographer’s stake was courage and a reflex, and The Swerve stands at 7.3.
It set the standard of what a single news photograph could do in a war in progress, and with Nick Ut’s The Terror of War of 1972, a tenth above at 8.1, it became the image of the war. It stands in the argument about the press and the loss of the war, and it is a reference case in writing on the photograph of atrocity; much of that reach is presence and political argument. Fifty-eight years on it is whole in its negative and in reproductions beyond counting, and it has outlived the war, both its subjects and its maker. The summit is closed to it by the Epochal Gate, where The Archetypal Deep, The Swerve and Pressure on Tradition fall short, and by the Universal Minimum at The Swerve. It stands at 8.0, in Tier IV.
Act III · The Twelve
The subtractive test, run on an instant no one composed at leisure. Take away the general’s outstretched arm and there is no act, only a prisoner in a street. Take away the prisoner’s face, the eyes narrowed and the mouth pulled at the moment the bullet enters, and the image becomes a threat, not a killing; the whole work stands on that fraction of a second, which no frame before or after holds. Take away the soldier wincing at the left and the act has no witness inside the picture. Take away the street and the killing loses its place. What yields is the periphery: the buildings, the soldiers behind, the width of the frame. The necessity is the event’s more than an order the maker found.
Score: 8.3 / 10
What the image brings into the open can be stated, and was stated at once by those who saw it in February 1968. An ally of the United States, a chief of police, killed a bound prisoner without trial, in the street, in front of the press. The war’s violence was not only the enemy’s. Death by violence is a single instant in a face, which the eye had never seen held still in this way. And the frame’s own geometry states the relation of power: one man armed, upright and seen from behind, one bound and seen full face. These are meanings, not moods. What holds the axis at the gate and not above it: its maker said it told half a truth, the frame withholds whatever came before it, and much of its disclosure is of one fact.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Elevation of the dreadful kind, at one height. The image reaches terror: a man at the threshold of death, the threshold itself made visible, the face distorted not by fear but by the impact, and the wince of the bystander repeating it. The response is a held breath and a recoil, and it dulls with familiarity more slowly than one would expect. But frequency counts as well as height, and this is a single summit in a single frame: no second rise, no ground of beauty against which the terror plays, and the street, the light and the figures at the edge are plain press reportage. It is horror more than transport, shock more than grandeur.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The particular is wholly particular: a named policeman, a named prisoner, a date, a street. And it acquires archetypal weight: the executioner and the victim, the extended arm of judgement without law, the bound man, the face of a man at the instant of his death. The pattern has a long line in painting, Goya’s The Third of May 1808 and Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian, and the photograph meets it in structure: the armed man, the victim facing, the onlookers. But the structure is found, not built. The archetype is present because the event had that shape and the photographer was there, and no figure of sacrifice or redemption is constructed in the frame, as Goya constructs one. Myth evoked by the shape of the event; built only in the arm and the face.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The inheritance is war photojournalism from Capa onward: the photographer at the front, the hand-held camera, the instant of death attempted, as in Capa’s The Falling Soldier of 1936, whose staging is disputed. The departure here is real in its content: a killing by one’s own side, recorded at the instant of the shot and put on the front pages of the countries fighting the war, where earlier photographs of the dead had been censored, delayed or shown at a distance. As a departure in the medium it is small. Adams made a straight news photograph by the methods of his trade; the turn was the event’s, and the stake was physical courage and a reflex, not an artistic wager against a tradition. Malcolm Browne’s burning monk of 1963 had already put a death in Vietnam on the world’s front pages.
Score: 7.3 / 10
Would another form change what the work knows? Almost wholly, and there is a control: the same act was filmed by Vo Suu for NBC, and the film was broadcast. In the film the shot passes in a moment, the body falls, blood runs; it is horrifying, and it is not this image. The still is the one form that holds the instant of death open, the face at the impact, for as long as the viewer can bear to look; the knowledge of the work is the stopping of that instant. As a painting it would be an invention; as a written account, a report. Black and white strips the street of its colour and holds the image to gesture and face. Held below the top because the form is the medium’s ordinary form, used as any press photograph is used.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Evidence over promise: fifty-eight years of return, and the questions have not closed. What a photograph tells and what it withholds: Adams spent his life saying the frame wronged the general, and the image is the standing case for the half truth of the instant. What the ethics are of publishing a death, and of the photographer who is there when it comes. How far the image moved American opinion after Tet, a claim often made and disputed by historians. Formal return yields too: the wincing soldier, the general’s unhurried stance, the offset of the two heads. What holds the axis is that the image, once seen, is seen, and much of the return is to the debate on photography and war, of which this is the most cited instance.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Published, so intrinsic force and achieved reach are scored together, in the field of war photography and photojournalism of the 1960s. Intrinsic force is high: the image set the standard of what one news photograph could do in a war in progress, show the instant of a killing, by an ally, at once, to a whole public; a culmination of the Vietnam press photograph, not its invention. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: with Nick Ut’s photograph of 1972, it became the image of the war; it is a reference case in writing on the photograph of atrocity, Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others among it; it framed how later wars were photographed and how armies managed photographers. Held below the gate because much of that reach is presence and political argument, not a line of photographers taking it as their departure.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Weighed on form, presence and fabric, at fifty-eight years. Form: whole. The image survives in its negative, in its wire distribution and in reproductions beyond counting, and no loss of a print would take it. Presence: continuous since the morning of 2 February 1968, in newspapers, books, schools, museums and the long argument about the war, among the widest of any photograph of its century; fame is presence, not proof, and lifts the figure only a little. Fabric: a silver negative is stable when kept, and an image this reproduced cannot be lost. The surface is fixed to a named war and a named man, which is the charge the axis lays; but the image has outlived the war, both its subjects and its maker, and is read now as a picture of killing, not as news.
Score: 8.9 / 10
Judged as command of the medium: hand-held 35 mm news photography, in the street, at close range, at the speed of an act. Credited: being there and staying close; the reflex that released the shutter at the instant of the shot, which no later skill can supply; a frame that holds three figures legibly, the general’s arm and the prisoner’s face sharp, the bystander inside the frame, the line of the arm reading left to right toward the face; an exposure that keeps the face and the plaid shirt clear against the street. The decisions bear load. Held below 8 because the composition is in large part the event’s and chance’s: the background is untended, the frame edge cuts figures arbitrarily, and the print is a standard wire print.
Score: 7.8 / 10
Take the two most distant elements: the general’s back, turned to the viewer, unhurried, almost casual in its stance; and the prisoner’s face, the most violent thing in the picture. They obey one law, the line of the arm. Everything in the frame is organised by the vector from the shoulder to the muzzle to the temple, and the soldier at the left leans away from the same line, so that even the witness obeys it. The light is one light, the moment one moment, and nothing in the frame contradicts it. Held at 8 because narrowness is not coherence: the territory is one instant and three figures, the law is grasped in a glance, and the coherence is the event’s, given rather than built.
Score: 8.0 / 10
More orders than a single frame usually holds, and held in one act. The state and its law: a chief of police killing without trial. War and history: the Tet Offensive, a city fought over, an army and its enemy. The body and death: the face at the instant. The public and the press: the witness inside the frame, the cameras outside it, a public that would read the image the next morning. The city: a street, buildings, daylight. One gesture touches all of them, and they are integrated. What holds the axis lowest of the twelve is what is absent: the family, labour, the sacred, the natural order, any story before or after; the lives of the victim and the general lie outside the frame, which is the substance of the maker’s own complaint. The figure describes the form.
Score: 6.8 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.0 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Imperishable at 8.9, then The Unconcealment at 8.5, then The Living Form and Pressure on Tradition at 8.4. An image whole in its negative and its reproductions and in view since the morning of 2 February 1968; a disclosure that can be stated, a bound man killed without law by the state’s own officer in public; a still that holds the instant of death open where the film of the same act lets it pass; and the standard of what one news photograph could do in a war in progress.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 6.8: the state, war, death, the press and the city held in one gesture, and the family, labour, the sacred, the natural order and any story before or after left outside the frame. Next above it, The Swerve at 7.3: a straight news photograph made by the methods of its trade, the turn the event’s rather than the maker’s. Then The Made at 7.8, and The Sublime and The Archetypal Deep at 7.9: a composition given in large part by the event and by chance, a single summit of dread, and a myth met by the shape of the event rather than built.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.3 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears: The Living Form at 8.4, The Made at 7.8, The Inner Law at 8.0, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet: The Imperishable at 8.9 clears the bar of 8.5 and The Unconcealment meets it exactly at 8.5, but Pressure on Tradition at 8.4 falls short by a tenth, The Archetypal Deep at 7.9 by six tenths and The Swerve at 7.3 by twelve tenths. The Universal Minimum is unmet at The Swerve, 7.3, two tenths below 7.5, and The Encompassed, which it exempts, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 6.8. Three of the five summit conditions are met, the Necessity Cap, the Coherence Floor and the Megethos Floor. The twelve sum to 96.4, an average of 8.03 that displays 8.0, in the band of Tier IV.
Basis · a reading from knowledge of the photograph Eddie Adams made in a street in Saigon on 1 February 1968, and of how it was distributed and received; not from a print in hand. The image is known well, from edge to edge; the negative and the print less well. The work scored is the photograph as published: one black and white frame of 35 mm film, the image as the Associated Press distributed it by wire and as front pages printed it on 2 February 1968, and as it is reproduced, with no fixed print size. The film of the same act made for NBC by Vo Suu, the prints later made for exhibition and the title, a press and museum label rather than the photographer’s, are context, and are not scored. The image won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography of 1969 and was World Press Photo of the Year for 1968. One sentence of Adams’s is quoted, from what he wrote in Time in 1998 on the general’s death; the rest of that passage is not quoted. Facts that could not be verified are not given, among them which newspapers printed the image on their front pages, the other frames on Adams’s roll, the camera, lens and film, whether the published frame is a crop of the negative, where the negative is held, Adams’s own account of how he raised the camera, and what Susan Sontag argued of this image beyond its place in Regarding the Pain of Others. Accounts of what had happened in the city before the shot are contested and are not given as fact; the image’s effect on American opinion after Tet is a claim often made and disputed by historians, and is stated as disputed.