Regarding Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag has been an influential figure to both my studio practice over the past few years and my dissertation, I was incredibly excited when I found out that the documentary Regarding Susan Sontag was being shown at the ICA with a Q&A with the film director Nancy Kates. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and I found myself being much more immersed in the way that the film was made and put together because of my involvement with film and editing over the last few months. This is something I have noticed myself doing much more often, however it was much more prominent when watching a film such as this. Nancy Kate spoke of Sontag’s love for beauty and being surround by beauty, and so she set out to make certain aspects of the film beautiful which to some would have seemed abstractly out of place within the film. There were times when the image was of a jar filling with sand with Sontag’s picture in it, and a play with water, images and distortion. Not only did this give you a sense of time passing, age, and fragility but Nancy Kate also mentioned Sontag’s love for photography and how we rely so heavily on images, this was an attempt to play with this idea, and distort the image of Sontag, perhaps in order to remember more closely the person, not the photograph.

What fascinated me was having the opportunity to understand more about Sontag’s life, and predominately, her personal life. Although I love her writing, this is a side of Sontag that I never really knew much about. What was done so fantastically was the subtle use of comedy throughout. There was something about the way in which the people interviewed and Sontag herself were so straight talking, which often made certain situations quite funny, it was great to watch. What amazed me throughout was Sontag’s will to continue living, and this was highlighted within the film.  She was truly an amazing woman, and perhaps her desire to achieve what was virtually impossible is what made it quite sad. It was great listening to Nancy speak about the film and how difficult it was to make, and to gather sources, this is something that I have been going through over the last few months so I was intrigued as to what the pressure of this would be on a much larger scale. 

I enjoyed the film immensely and Nancy Kate mentioned that she wished for the audience to see a side of Sontag that they might have not necessarily known much about, this was certainly something that this film did.