Stranger with a Camera

Even though Elizabeth Barret's film "Stranger with a Camera" was in black and white, for the most part I could not find myself to turn away from the movie. Barret did a great job of replaying the lives of both Hobart Ison and Hugh O'Connor from an outsiders and insiders point of view. She replayed the tragic death of Hugh O'Connor in 1967 and how Hobert Ison killed him trying to defend himself from the views of outsiders. Barret, a native to Kentucky herself, goes back to the roots of Appalachia and how the town considers everyone family no matter what they have done, even if they killed someone. The movie tries to display the feelings of the community of Appalachia and how they dealt with Ison killing O'Connor. Barret tries to represent the community as more than just a hillbilly town where people kill without thinking twice. She brings to life the real identity of the townspeople and how they too believed that even though Ison was a member of their community he should be punished for what he had done. Hobart thought that O'Connor like the rest of the reporters who planned on taking pictures of his land was there to negatively represent him. The town was stereotyped by the rest of the world because of the killing of Hugh O'Connor, and in order to clear up the misjudged town, Barret talks about the differences in both men's lives and how both sides of the story dealt with what happened. Barret also talks about the responsibilities to accuratly represent the events of the story from both standpoints. As a film maker and Kentucky native Barret felt a connection to the town and an obligation to acuratly display the town, relaying her feelings of the miscommunication and misjudgement, that resulted in the death of a man named Hugh O' Connor in 1967.