Crusading

1998, Video, 6:45 (Colour, Stereo) [clip]

by Kenneth Doren

Crusading unravels the making of a media issue with the quiet and deliberately paced takes of an eight-year-old halting singing from a sheet of quotes made by Dr. Luigi Di Bella in a crusade for his unorthodox treatments for cancer. The power of public sentiment surrounding this story seems to have given the media license to exploit the issue on a global level that is actually effecting change within the medical profession. Dislocated from the story the young singer appears to reference an anchor person on a TV news show and obviously does not understand what she has been given to read, nor does she feel any need to disguise her disinterest and boredom. The resulting sequences are humorous and poignant as we contrast the innocent honesty of a child with the highly manipulated but supposedly objective deliverance of "the anchor man".

ISBN 978-1-55467-233-2