Stranger with a Camera explores the conditions that fueled the killing of Canadian filmmaker Hugh O'Connor as well as the implications his death has had for filmmakers. The film begins by chronicling the details of the incident. In 1967, O'Connor and his crew were working on a film called
US that sought to depict the variety of people and daily lifestyles across the United States. In eastern Kentucky, they filmed coal miners and their families. One afternoon, they stopped on the side of the road to film a family living in a rental house in
Jeremiah, Kentucky. Although the filmmakers received permission of the family to film, they failed to receive it from the landowner, Hobart Ison. As the filmmakers were leaving, Ison drove up and fired three shots, killing Hugh O'Connor. The killing of Hugh O'Connor by Ison had a lasting impact on the surrounding community, including the filmmaker herself.
Elizabeth Barret grew up in
Perry County, Kentucky. She explains that while she grew up knowing what had happened the day of O'Connor's death, she now desires to find out why it happened. She wonders what brought these two men, one with a camera and one with a gun, face to face back in 1967. She poses several questions in the beginning of the film. What is the difference between how people see their own place and how others represent it? Who gets to tell the community's story? What are the storytellers' responsibilities? And what do these questions have to do with the murder of Hugh O'Connor? Barret sets out on her journey to understand both sides of the story surrounding the death of Hugh O'Connor. She delves into background of both Ison and O'Connor through interviews of their respective friends and family. Through the film she explores the impact of the images generated by mass media of rural
Appalachia during the
War on Poverty: images of coal mining disasters, coal strikes, and poor people. As a native of Letcher County she can understand Ison's fear of outsiders portraying his home in a negative way. As a filmmaker, she can understand the goal of O'Connor to capture the story on film. Ison's trial for murder in 1968 resulted in a hung jury, 11 to 1 for conviction. Ison then pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter as the second trial was set to begin. He was sentenced to ten years in prison and paroled after one year. With this result, Elizabeth Barret concludes, "the ties that bind communities together are not always positive. Suspicion of those who are different - defining yourself in opposition to others - these can tie a community together, but can also lead to violence." Although Barret admits to having found no resolution to her questions about what happened that day in 1967, she understands that as a filmmaker she has a responsibility to see her community for what it is and to tell the story no matter how difficult. She ends, posing the question, "What are the responsibilities of any of us who take the images of other people and put them to our own uses?" == Background ==