Photojournalist Gilles Caron's life and disappearance, bearing witness to conflict

Irish Examiner

3 days ago

France was already six years into its war with Algeria when journalist Gilles Caron was drafted into the French army. During his two years serving as a paratrooper in Algeria — from July 1960 to April 1962, two months of which he spent in a military prison for refusing to fight — he wrote daily to his mother Charlotte, whom he affectionately called Mame, often sending several letters in a day.
In them, he recounted stories of what he was witnessing and his thoughts about a war to which he was opposed. One line from this cache of letters provides a valuable contextual insight into Caron's future motivations and actions. He writes: 'I can't understand how I'm not hidden away in a department in Algiers. Well yes, I know, I wanted to see…'.
Bogside No Entry. Pic: Gilles Caron
I wanted to see. Gilles Caron's desire to observe the world and bear witness to what he saw would ultimately define the trajectory of his life.
Caron's lens went on to document many of the era-defining conflicts of the 20th century — the Six-Day War, Vietnam, Biafra, The Troubles — as well as the scenes and stars of 1960s Paris, creating a body of photojournalism that comprises a peerless document of social change and historic events. The 100,000 photographs Caron took during this time highlight his incredible talent as a storyteller, an artist and a fearless journalist. It's an extraordinary legacy for someone whose career was so brief.
Bogside slingshot man. Pic: Gilles Caron
Gilles Caron disappeared while on assignment in Cambodia on April 5, 1970, leaving behind his wife, Marianne, and their two daughters, seven-year-old Marjolaine, and two-year-old Clémentine. He was 30 years old.
'My mother learned about it on the radio. When she turned on the radio in the morning, she learned that Gilles Caron had disappeared,' says Marjolaine Caron when I ask what her memories are of that time. The now 62-year-old visual artist speaks in French; also on our Zoom is Frederique, who translates, and Anne-Laure Buffard, Gilles Caron's gallerist.
Marjolaine's father had been staying at The Royal hotel in Phnom Penh, having reluctantly travelled to Cambodia to document the growing unrest in the wake of a March 18 coup deposing head of state Norodom Sihanouk.
Soldats britanniques. Pic: Gilles Caron
Writing to Marianne during his time in Phnom Penh he said: 'I am all about family life now, and [news agency] Gamma needs to find a replacement for me.'
Caron had become increasing conflicted about the role of the photojournalist as bystander, wondering if it was it enough to just bear witness to the horrors of war.
Bogside soldiers. Pic: Gilles Caron
On Sunday, April 5, Caron, on the hunt for a story about the escalating conflict, was captured, along with three others, on National Road 1 in Cambodia's Parrot's Beak region, which was controlled by Vietnamese communist forces and the Khmer Rouge.
'It was quite a shock for her,' recalls Marjolaine of her mother's reaction to the radio report relaying the news that her husband was missing. 'She was like [she was] frozen.'
Caron was one of almost 40 journalists who would disappear during the five years of the Cambodian civil war. His remains have never been found.
Marjolaine Caron: 'When my father disappeared, my sister was two years old. She doesn't have those memories.'
Marianne was left in limbo, not knowing if her husband was alive, dead, or being subjected to torture. 'My mother was constantly waiting for news,' Marjolaine says, explaining that she would regularly hear false reports Gilles might be on the next plane. 'So she was still waiting for his return. Without knowing if he was dead, if he was a prisoner, if he was going to come back, if he wasn't going to come back.'
Some years ago, Marjolaine asked her mother if she recalled how she had reacted to the news of her father's disappearance. 'She told me that I had asked her two or three times, where was my father? When was he going to come back? And she told me that she didn't know.'
Seven year-old Marjolaine had 'fits of despair. Two, three fits of despair, where I cried for a very long time, very loudly. And then, it was over. Afterwards, we didn't talk about it anymore… I wasn't going to ask her again when he was coming back, she wasn't going to tell me she didn't know.' Should there be news of her father, the child knew that her mother would tell her and so, she says, 'I didn't ask the question again'.
For the family, there would be no funeral, no closure, and, says Marjolaine, very little support, either from Gamma or her father's colleagues, bar from fellow photojournalist Raymond Depardon.
Caron was finally declared dead on September 22, 1978.
Demonstration of catholics to defend their rights. Pic: Gilles Caron
Despite only knowing her father for a few short years, Marjolaine has evocative memories of them together. She recalls accompanying him to a Parisian café near their home — 'I remember the ambience of that café, me in front of my father, the smoke, the atmosphere… it was a special moment, I think, for me' — as well as a trip to the cinema in his red Volkswagen 'which smelled of leather… of Gauloises' to see The Jungle Book, at which she asked her father 'why boys had long hair' (doubtless referencing Mowgli's French-style bob).
She feels privileged to have these recollections of her papa. 'When my father disappeared, my sister was two years old. She doesn't have those memories.' Despite the torturous limbo into which the Carons were plunged, not knowing if Gilles was alive or dead, the three of them coped as best they could, with Marjolaine largely continuing to be the 'happy little girl' she'd always been, perhaps trying, she thinks now, to be joyful for her mother's sake.
Bogside women group. Pic: Gilles Caron
'I was in symbiosis with my mother', she says, noting that she never saw Marianne 'really depressed or having anxiety attacks, of tears. I never witnessed that. I think she really held on in front of her children.' Marianne held no bitterness towards her husband for the legacy of his life choices, says Marjolaine. 'She adored my father. She wanted him to be able to do what he wanted to do. She especially didn't want to prevent him from doing what he wanted to do. So she never held it against him.'
Marjolaine doesn't either. 'What I think is that he was very young when he left for Algeria, and then he started doing his job; he was 25… and everything happened very quickly. Between the trauma of the Algerian War that he experienced and then my birth [nine months] after [he returned from] the Algerian War…Things happened too quickly for him to have time to think and I can't say that I blame him. That doesn't mean I'm not angry [he disappeared]. But I don't blame him [for his choices].'
Bogside molotovs. Pic: Gilles Caron
Caron's images of war were powerful and influential. If his 1967 photographs of the bloody battle at Vietnam's Dak-To appear familiar, it's perhaps because there are echoes of their essence in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket and Coppola's Apocalypse Now; both directors collected Caron's work. Similarly, Caron's images of an Orange march from his stint in Derry in August 1969 are said to have inspired the Droogs' attire in A Clockwork Orange. His iconic images of the Battle of the Bogside were given 10 pages in Paris-Match, with a young boy in a gas mask holding a Molotov cocktail making the cover.
Bogside Belfast soldiers. Pic: Gilles Caron
Afterwards, Gilles Caron said: 'It's quite simple. I was in Ireland before anyone else. The evening before the fighting broke out, I had arrived to cover a march… In Paris, they thought there was no point in sending someone. The demonstrators took the arrival of the British Army to be a victory for the Catholics. I thought it was all over and I was going to leave when things started up again in Belfast. I took a taxi from Derry to Belfast. I worked all day and all night then got on a plane to London and gave my photos to a passenger who was flying on to Paris. That meant that Gamma had the originals the following day before the slow coaches in the English papers. The guys from Paris Match arrived on the Saturday when I was leaving.'
Bogside Bradley Sons. Pic: Gilles Caron
'I think he really wanted to be able to tell both sides,' Marjolaine says of those images. 'He was still very sensitive to the revolt and the energy.'
Caron's photographs are incredibly dynamic, perfectly framed and, despite featuring events of almost half a century ago, seem somehow timeless. He gets extraordinarily close to his subjects and in doing so he tells their story, giving his images an authenticity and power that is arguably unparalleled in photojournalism.
Manifestante republicaine Bogside. Pic: Gilles Caron
Marjolaine travelled to Cambodia in 2012. In Phnom Penh, she unveiled a plaque honouring her father. She told The Cambodian Daily: 'When I arrived and the plane landed, I was feeling very oppressed. It was very hard for me. I was crying. I didn't think I could come to this country. Because I didn't think I could do anything to find him. I would like to find some bones or something. I would like it very much, because we have nothing.' Marjolaine, gallerist Anne-Laure points out, has carried 'this very heavy story and heritage' her entire life, while also searching for her own identity as an individual.
Of her father's work, Marjolaine says, 'I feel like I've always known these photos. I don't know when I discovered them, but I feel like I've always lived with them, I've always known them somewhere… These photos are part of my life.'
The Park Hotel Kenmare is showing a selection of photographic works from its own collection by renowned photojournalist Gilles Caron from July 24 until August 24, for more information, see parkkenmare.com
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