Baltimore filmmaker Theo Anthony's heady documentary ponders visual perception in the 21st century by exploring the ways technology has attempted to duplicate human vision with results ranging from the beneficial to the actively harmful--sometimes both at once--especially to members of marginalized communities.
Anthony deconstructs his own film as he goes along. He isn't just telling a story, he's peeling back the layers to tell the story of the story. In All Light Everywhere, his follow-up to 2016's Rat Film, narrator Keaver Brenai starts by explaining that she's an actor hired to act as an impartial observer, even as she voices thoughts written by the director. In interview segments, he also includes setups other documentarians might leave out as a means of providing transparency.
He starts by documenting a research study to measure the way people respond to media content. As the study coordinator positions participants with sensory devices, Baltimore composer Dan Deacon's electronic score swirls around them as if they were characters in a David Cronenberg film about to undergo some nefarious neurological process.
From there, he segues to Scottsdale, Arizona's Axon International. In this state-of-the-art, open-space facility, workers design and manufacture Taser products. In 2008, Axon released their first body camera. By 2018, they had an 85% market share in body cams, a widely adopted police accountability tool. As spokesperson Steve Tuttle explains, the lens aims to "mimic the human eye." Anthony also documents a training course in which police officers learn how to operate body cams and upload videos.
When he shares a video of a mall cop's walk around with a body cam, however, the Axon lens fails to see things exactly the way a human would, since its wide-angle lens distorts and excludes certain kinds of data. Nonetheless, the legal community views body cam footage as more objective than spoken-word testimony.
Through illustrated texts and newsreel footage, Anthony looks back at 19th-century devices like French astronomer Jules Janssen's Gatling gun-inspired photographic revolver, which predated the movie camera, and the motion studies of British photographer Eadweard Muybridge, which found their way into Jordan Peele’s recent sci-fi-horror adventure Nope. The technology behind Janssen's revolver would later be incorporated into long-range artillery.
Other topics include aerial surveillance using pigeons and drones, the role of composite photography in eugenics, and how communities of color feel about surveillance as a means of crime deterrence. He concludes by noting that the Baltimore Police Department has adopted both body cams and aerial surveillance, even though a previous top-secret surveillance project, put into place after the murder of Freddie Gray, met with criticism after citizens found out—even the mayor had not been informed.
All Light, Everywhere bursts with so many ideas that a second viewing helps to make sense of it all. Not everything works as well as it could, like an epilogue about a high school media studies class, but Anthony brings a lot of intriguing ideas into play about vision, technology, and how the two have tangled in myriad ways throughout the centuries, often with weaponry and state control involved in troubling ways.
Where does this title belong on library shelves?
All Light, Everywhere belongs on documentary shelves in academic and public libraries with titles by Chris Marker and Errol Morris who has also explored issues of perception and transparency in their work.
What kind of film series could use this title?
Theo Anthony's feature would fit with film series on modern-day policing tactics alongside features like Spencer Wolff's 2019 documentary Stop, a critical examination of New York's widely condemned "stop and frisk" program.
What type of instructors can use this title?
College and graduate-level media studies students will find much to consider and discuss after watching All Light, Everywhere. Consider screening in classroom settings with the filmmaker's 2019 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary short Subject to Review, which examines the connections between live professional tennis and instant replay footage.