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Tell us what you think.
Selected submissions will be posted here, so check back regularly.
5/12/06
mjmassey
I was fortunate enough to get to know Hansel in the last few years of her life.She was gentle and generous,welcoming me into her home and her world.
I feel overwhelmingly lucky to have stumbled upon this site,and swim in the memories I have of my time with her.
She is a heroine,never to be forgotten.
I can't wait to see this film!!
4/3/06
Dennis Wild
Yesterday your film was screened nationally on the Sunday afternoon Arts
program here in Australia. I was stunned and deeply moved by the
sensitive treatment of the content. What a magnificant Photographer she
was, and so little understood. The only image I had ever seen before was
the monkey image. I teach Photography at Diploma level and I'm familiar
with the work of most of the Farm Security photographers and of artists
working through the WPA in the depression period, but I was completely
suprised by this immigrants work who strived so hard with her partner to
make these stunning images from 'the inside' and not just as a
sympathetic observer. I was aware of the blacklisting which took place
and I feel this film goes some way to correcting this cultural
censorship.
Thank you so much
6/2/03
Thankyou !!! for The story of Hansel Meith !!
very profound, very relevant to the present,
it seems to have moved many, looking at your chosen talkback comments, In your research, where did you find the image of the monkey, sitting partly submerged on the reef, such a powerful image,
i have visited the listings of center of creative photography,Hansel
Meith, but did not see that image listed,
can you tell me where i can find reference of this image,
and is it possible to include it on the web selection of images?
Keep up the heartfelt work !!
<< Thank you for your interest in Hansel's famous photo of the Rhesus monkey. The photograph is the property of Time-Life, Inc. For more information about this or other Time-Life photographs, you can contact Time-Life, Inc. or Deborah Heimendinger, the art dealer who represents HanselMieth, at dhfineart@aol.com. >>
6/2/03
Izzy F.
Ventura,CA
What a touching film....I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hansel Mieth's images are really moving, I intend on making as many people aware of her work as possible. Thank you....
6/2/03
Pat Molnar
I really enjoyed your documentary on this photographer, whose name I had never heard before. I am a high school English teacher, specifically of 9th graders, and the 1930s comes up in several of the works we study, so I would love to expose Mieth's photographs to my students. She had a real magic for seeing inside the lives of many people who society ignored. Maybe she felt this so strongly because she could relate to their loss and their difficulties in the way that others photographers could not.
Thank you so much for telling her story. I look forward to purchasing her video.
6/2/03
What a remarkable film about a remarkable human being! I tryed to vote for this film for the Audience Award online, but was unable too.
It is one of the best films I have seen on TV, and most likely a combanation of the filmaker and the subject. Hansel Mieth is a role model for women of any time with her remarkable talent and persistance toward exposing truth.
6/2/03
Barbara Jameson
Mieth, having suffered injustices and adversities herself, is able to convey, through her photographic eye, the strength and courage it takes to survive injustice. Perhaps society would rather not reflect on images that require contemplation. And compassion. Mieth's photographs have a depth I have rarely seen. A gift to the world would be a retrospective of her work and a compilation into a book. Particularly in these trying times. Let us hope she is never forgotten and that the recipient of her negatives will be inspired to do just that.
6/2/03
Rose Owen
Portland, Oregon
Every great character, must have their story told, and I think that this documentary gave a moving and dynamic version. Only in story can we immortalize our heros . . . and perhaps this is why her work is in danger of being forgotten. For many she is not a hero, but a pest, buzzing in their ear, reminding them of the exploitation and injustice in the world. It is easier, but not wiser, not to see it. She saw it, and wanted everyone to see it. She wanted the world to reconize the humanity of everyone because, as we learned from the Holocaust, we are capable of monstrous astrocities when we dehumanize fellow members of our human family. She shed light on the vibrant humanity of the oppressed to counter the idea that the poor do not feel their condition or their lives with as much intensity as the comfortable or rich do.
In a world with few women role models of integrity, Hansel Mieth is a breathe of fresh air. Thank you.
6/2/03
Sanford Siegel
San Francisco, CA
We enjoyed the film about Hansel Mieth very much. We knew her personally and feel that you did great justice to her life and work. I am writing to thank you for making the film. I hope it will be rebroadcast soon at a more reasonable hour so that more of our friends can see it. Let us know if a rebroadcast is planned in the near future. You did a great job.
5/29/03
Chris Hardy
Paris, France
I very much enjoyed the program on Hansel Mieth. To see her photographs with the her life story that encompassed them gave me chills. Hearing her and Otto's story really made me think about the greatly diverse range of discrimination and oppression. It also made me think that maybe what happened to Hansel and Otto happened for a reason-maybe it was their fate to show the real people of the world: the working class, the poor, the victims of oppression, the "outcasts" of society. Her work shows real people and made me really think about how life really is and how it is very easy to make a habit of taking things for granted everyday. It was very moving and important to me to be exposed to this and I very much enjoyed it. Thank you.
5/29/03
The photo of the monkey in the water was familiar to me, but I had never paid attention to the photographer or the circumstances of the photo.
I wept with the story of how Hansel took that photo and how she was haunted throughout her life by that encounter with that animal and the image she captured. It was a revelation to hear that that moment had stuck with her throughout her life and that she had had a dialouge in a dream later in her life with that lonley. pensive, angry animal.
It seems as though it is a signature photo for Hansel.
Her work warrants a show somewhere. Americans need to see her work! It seems some curator should really move on getting her images out there to us! We would all bennefit. Publish a book!!, but in the meantime, thank you for making this film!
5/29/03
Anne Landgraf
Taos, NM
There is a reason it is called "history"! Tragically, the lives of many significant women and their valuable contributions to the world have been under-reported, downplayed, and just plain ignored over the centuries. What a treat to see this program celebrate Hansel Mieth and her wonderful photographs! Her work is important not only from an American perspective, but also from a human perspective.
5/29/03
streamas@wsu.edu
I'd seen Hansel Mieth's wartime photographs of Japanese Americans, but I knew nothing of her life. I do wonder whether she made any photographs after her blacklisting. The film situates her work in its historical and cultural context, but it also balances the photographs with this remarkable life. Too few photographers carry on Mieth's tradition today (Salgado is one). Thanks for a fine film and the chance to see it.
5/28/03
Jutta Maue-Kay
Franklin, TN
What a life. What a story. As a photographer and a German woman, if was stunned that I've never heard anything about Hansel Mieth.
I believe that immigrants - I don't like the term foreigners - bring a very valuable perspective to America. They all came for the same reason - to better their lives - but they also don't have the nationalistic blinders on that so many Americans have about their country. That goes for any other country too, of course.
As was stated in the film, Americans were not ready or willing to face the side of life she photographed and to be a "foreigner" and a German during that time in history was another strike against her.
I will defintely try to find the video and hopefully a book on her. Her story was most inspiring.
Thank You
5/28/03
Recent American History is repleat with facts of heroism and chicanery. Certainly, Hansel Mieth would be counted as a hero for her brave exposure of the wicked side of America and its treatment of its people.
5/28/03
Earl Wirth
Calgary, Alberta
This film cuts to the heart of the value of Human Persistence, and the effect a person can have by simply pursuing your individual sense of what is right.
This Lady made several decisions bases on personal principal, and while there were many times our world did not seem ready to reward her... her photographs live to mock the McCarthys of this world.
5/28/03
Vicki
Cedar Hill, texas
I enjoyed this story very much. I believe her life and works show the truth about our society and culture.
From the real people to the giant corporations. It is for those reasons that her true work and calling was put aside. However, she kept to her strength and intensity.
Thanks to all who made this story possible for viewing.
5/28/03
Jerrold Peterson
Honolulu, Hi
I met Hansel and Otto in 1950 when they were hired by "Ladies Home Journel to do a photo story about my family who lived in Santa Rosa, Ca., that was published in the January 1951 issued in a story called Second Marriage. They spent a month with us around our home, at the California coast, at our mountain ranch in Mendocino County, and various other shots in Sonoma County. My stepfather, Ed Healey, still lives in Santa Rosa and has a great many of their photographs hung on the walls and in drawers. My mother, Elaine Healey, passed away in 1997 and she always liked to keep tract of Hansel. Little did I ever know that they were black listed. Having lived in Honolulu since 1964 and being very close to many Japanese I was fascinated to see her internment photos. Thank you for airing the show. I hope many people see it. It gave me such a start (and tremendous pleasure) to accidentally turn the show on tonight--not having seen them since 1950 when I was just eight years old. Just like yesterday!
5/28/03
Michael Riccio
Sarasota, Florida
I really enjoyed your program on Hansel Mieth. I would be very interested to find out where and how I could possibly purchase some of the photographs(or others), which were shown on the PBS.org website.
Please advise me. Thanks very much and please keep up the GREAT work.
5/28/03
Hansel Mieth's story on Independent Lens is the most incredible bio I have heard in my 73 years. I am a child survivor of the Holocaust and my mother who was a feminist, born at the same time, also lived through the first world war and in poverty until the Nazis took her entire community, five children,my grandmother and her many brothers and sisters to Auschwitz. I survived and came to this country feeling very much like Hansel because as great as she was, she was not understood by the culture here. Please send me a picture of the "Monkey" because his expression brought out tears from my eyes which doesn't happen easily to me, I also see the profoundity of truth in the eyes of that (human) animal. It is like looking truth in the face for me. Thank you for making this film and for showing it on PBS's independent lens.
5/28/03
One reason there may be danger of her work being forgotten could be due to the lack of exposure. I have only recently taken an interest in art within the past 3 years and know almost nothing. I only happened upon the pbs presentation. I am so glad I did. Many people (including myself) have just never taken the time to appreciate some of the arts. There could be numerous other reasons I am totally unaware of. Each person is unique, regardless of their race or gender. Being a minority can only bring more interest to any subject. Her choice of subject seems quiet evident. These subjects were more the norm than the "chosen" subjects. They portayed whate life was really about. Being able to have a life and be treated with fairness. She never seemed towant "better" treatment just equal for all. Her gift of seeing such beauty in life was truly amazing.
5/28/03
Regan Lee
Edmond, OK
What a wonderful film! I discovered it by accident while flipping through the channels. It grabbed my interest from the beginning and held it all the way through. This woman had such vision. Each photograph could tell an entire story. I plan on researching more about this amazing photographer and want to thank your station for introducing me to her!
5/28/03
John Herbert
Waco, Texas
Ms. Mieth's work is not in danger of being lost or forgotten if this film is seen by many, and if it is an accurate portrayal of her life in the United States.
The film is about so many things. That it maintains such consistency and continuity is a testament to Nancy Shiesari's talent and skill as a documentarian, biographer and commentator.
At first I thought it was documentary about a photographer. Then I thought it was story about oppression of labor in California in the Depression. Then I realized it is both of those things, but much more. It certainly is about the life of a woman, an immigrant, an artist and an honest intellectual. But then it is also about the North American culture and the awesome strength and integrity of an individual.
I will recommend it to every woman and girl I know, and to every man and boy, as a lesson in living a purposeful life with grace and dignity.
5/28/03
Allen Jones
Omaha, Tx
To your first question, there is the only essential answer, which has applied for centuries. Great art works are no guarantee that full and far-ranging recognition will come to their maker during the artist's lifetime. But Hansel Mieth will not be forgotten, for what she accomplished is too strong, too potent and visually mysterious, while keeping its value as social commentary.
Answers to your second and third questions are too complex to attempt to begin speculating about in this space. The short answers might be that she brought her soul and formidable intellect to her work and that her life's experience demanded that she would form her acute insights into one ineffable image after another after another.
5/28/03
Ted Michael Morgan
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
I have no answers to your questions. This fascinating documentary brings me to an immensely moving story. Until tonight, I had not known Ms. Mieth's name, though certainly I must have seen some of her work. However, I do not recall any of the images in the documentary.
Her story resonates within me because I find divorcing my sense of joy in living form my sense of outrage at injustice. Ms. Mieth's work does not seem foreign to me. Her work mirrors what I recall seeing in my youth. Thank you for the documentary.
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