Stranger with a Camera
By examining a single incident — the 1967 murder of a documentary filmmaker by an eastern Kentucky landowner — Stranger with a Camera raises questions about representation and interrogates the documentary medium itself.
In Jeremiah, Kentucky, in 1967, a local landowner named Hobart Ison shot and killed documentary filmmaker Hugh O'Connor. The two men had met only minutes before the murder — shortly after O'Connor and his crew interviewed a poor family renting property from Ison. By considering this single act of violence, Stranger with a Camera spotlights the complex role media depictions play in society, and the responsibilities that those who produce media must assume.