American Masters : Robert Capa: In Love and War (2003)

Genres - War, Historical Film  |   Sub-Genres - Biography, Graphic & Applied Arts, Art History, Military & War  |   Run Time - 90 min.  |   Countries - United States  |  
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Celebrated as the "Greatest War Photographer in the World," the Hungarian-born Robert Capa (1913-1954) vividly recorded no fewer than five wars, beginning with the Spanish Civil War of 1936. It was during this conflict that Capa achieved fame with his heartbreaking Falling Soldier, capturing the death of a Spanish freedom fighter at the moment of the bullet's impact. Capa went on to photograph several of the major battles of WWII, including D-day (his coverage of this epochal event inspired the harrowing opening sequence of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan). His brilliance with the camera transformed Capa into an international celebrity, bringing him in close contact with several other notables, among them actress Ingrid Bergman, with whom he had a brief romance (Bergman's daughter Isabella Rosellini is among those interviewed in this documentary). It was during his coverage of the French-Indochina war of the early '50s that Capa was killed in action after he stepped on a land mine. First exhibited at the Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 2003, the 90-minute Robert Capa: In Love and War made its American TV bow four months later on the PBS American Masters anthology.

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Keywords

photographer, war-correspondent, life-story, photojournalist, interview, photography, rise-to-fame, anti-Fascist, expatriate, Leftist