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‘Never Look Away’ Review: Lucy Lawless Directs Fascinating Documentary on Death-Defying Photojournalist Margaret Moth
Lucy Lawless makes her directing debut with documentary 'Never Look Away,' a fascinating look at photojournalist Margaret Moth.
The thin line between cheating death and chasing it appears to have been smudged, repeatedly, by maverick video journalist Margaret Moth, the subject of first-time filmmaker Lucy Lawless ’ fascinating documentary “ Never Look Away.” At least, that’s the impression we’re left with at the end of this compact yet complex portrait of a singularly and aggressively unconventional war correspondent who inspired equal measures of admiration and anxiety among her friends, colleagues and lovers throughout her 20 years of assignments in the world’s trouble spots — Baghdad, Sarajevo, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Zaire, you name it, she was there — for CNN. Born Margaret Wilson to a working-class family in Gisborne, New Zealand, she changed her name to Moth, dyed her blonde hair jet-black, and routinely applied enough Goth eyeliner to cosplay a young Joan Jett before moving to Houston, Texas in the early 1980s to work as a news cameraperson at CBS affiliate KHOU. Over the next two decades, Moth attained near-legendary status among her colleagues and superiors with her willingness — no, make that eagerness — to get as close to the “messy, human reality of war.” At one point, while other photojournalists dived for cover behind cars as militiamen opened fire on protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia, she stood her ground and turned her camera on the violence.
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