Customer Reviews

Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A great, cinematic read - a shame that the estate did not allow photographs, but they never will. Yet this book is so vivid and esxciting that you don't notice the images not being there - you see them in your head. Really tremendous research, so much more objective than the authorized hagiographer Whelan's account, and this will one day be a movie - it just feels so right. A great, great tale told very well by Kershaw. Best bio on a photographer ever written.

This book is a story, told to be thrilling and informative and will stand the test of time as the best book written about the trade of war photography. It should be a film because the action and character development are well plotted. And if you want to know, close up, about the great moments of the last century, then here is a ring-side seat on history in the making too. Inspiring stuff. If only there were more biographies written like this.

Capa is one of the romantic characters of journalism, a free spirit with an insatiable appetite for risk-taking, alcohol, cigarettes and women. That he died at age 40 in the line of duty as a war photographer has only embellished his image. These are the facts we have known about Capa for decades, reported nicely in Whelan's biography in the 1980's. This book doesn't expand on this information very much.

If you leave out the sections about the famous women he bedded, this would be a much shorter book. It's tawdry in that regard but that does keep the book rolling along. Overall, it's not a bad biography of Capa. It does seem to me to borrow heavily from Whelan's biography and from Capa's own book "Slightly Out Of Focus". If you're familiar with those books, there are no new revelations here.

I do take issue with one small point. Capa is constantly referred to as having Leicas dangling around his neck, using Leicas on assignments and holding Leicas. While I do not doubt Capa used Leicas--along with other brands of cameras--during his career, Kershaw's repeated references are tedious. This is especially true when one considers that Capa is closely identified with the now defunct 35mm Zeiss Contax, he used Contax cameras during the D-Day invasion and he was using Contax cameras at the time of his death in Indochina in 1954. In fact, the two photographs in Kershaw's book that show Capa with a camera "dangling around his neck" actually show him with Contax cameras, not Leicas.

That small point is indeed small, however, it begs the question of how correct the other information might be. Of course biographies are often based on hearsay and ancedotal information, the veracity of which is open to interpretation. Maybe Kershaw was just invoking creative license and using Leica as metaphor. It's not a point any non-photographer reader would even notice. Still, I find it a little troubling.

Overall, this is a decent but derivative sketch of Capa.

An exceptionally nasty hatchet job, sloppily written, relying heavily on the authorized biography by Robert Whelan. Not surprisingly, Cornell Capa, the biographee's brother and custodian of his heritage refused cooperation, even to the extent of denying the use crucial photos, with this author.