The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo is a fascinating new documentary available on Netflix that painstakingly exposes the unfair practice of Western media in the past of stealing and wrongfully claiming credit for art created—in this case, photographs—by Southeast Asian artists. When the photograph "The Terror of War," also popularly known as "Napalm Girl," was first taken and published in Western newspapers in 1972, it instantly encapsulated the horrific brutality of war, and the Vietnam War in particular, sparking widespread criticism of the US government. In the brilliant and poignant The Stringer, director Bao Nguyen and photojournalist Gary Knight set out to find the freelance photographer, or "stringer," who actually took the photograph, which continues to be wrongly attributed to Nick Ut.
The "Napalm Girl" is a world-famous photograph taken during the Vietnam War that continues to express the heartbreaking and devastating effects of war, especially on children, who are undoubtedly the most vulnerable in such situations. During the devastating war between North and South Vietnam, in 1972, a South Vietnamese Skyraider unit was ordered to drop napalm bombs on their enemies near the village of Trang Bang.
Director: Bao Nguyen
Stars: Damien Cole, Gary Knight
But on the morning of June 8, 1972, the Skyraider unit flew over the village and mistakenly bombed homes and buildings belonging to their own people, destroying and injuring numerous South Vietnamese citizens in a shocking and cruel twist of fate. A South Vietnamese army unit stationed in the village realized the mistake of their airborne comrades and attempted to flee the impact zone, encouraging a group of villagers to follow them.
But as soldiers and villagers poured out of Trang Bang and ran along the nearby stretch of main road, the Skyraider aircraft dropped its third and final bomb on them, still unaware that they were not the enemy. The entire area erupted in horrific flames from the napalm, and innocent civilians were trapped. Since the Vietnam War was already receiving considerable media attention from the American and British press, numerous journalists and photographers positioned themselves some distance from the village of Trang Bang, kept at a safe distance by the barbed wire strung across the main road. From there, they watched in horror, and also photographed numerous civilians fleeing the thick smoke, trying to escape certain death.
Among these civilians were also many young children, and one girl in particular immediately drew attention because of her terrible condition. Naked, the young girl ran toward the journalists, screaming in pain, her skin visibly peeling away from the chemical fire she had been engulfed in. It was at that moment that one of the photojournalists managed to capture a crucial image of the little girl, weeping and flailing her arms in pain, her naked body, ravaged by poverty and bearing the horrific wounds inflicted by the napalm bomb, telling countless stories of the horrors of war, all in a single glance. When the photograph was developed and sent back to the United States the next day, it had an immediate impact on society. Newspapers across the West used it to write about the suffering of innocent Vietnamese people because of the rather pointless conflict and about the need to stop the atrocities against children.
During the following weeks, student anti-war movements across the United States intensified and continued their vigorous protests against the government's decision to interfere in Vietnam's internal politics. The Stringer features an audio recording of a political advisor speaking directly to President Richard Nixon about the shocking photograph, demonstrating its reach across all social strata and its genuine social and political impact. This same photograph was soon dubbed "Napalm Girl" and later given the more all-encompassing title "The Terror of War," which remains one of the most iconic war photographs ever taken. The man credited with the harrowing image, Nick Ut, a staff member of the Associated Press, received the World Press Photo of the Year award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, establishing him as a highly talented photojournalist in the West.
Although the photo itself suggested a symbolic distance between the subject and the photographer, as was natural given their respective positions, the girl seen running in the image reached the journalists and was immediately helped. A video recorded by a British news crew from ITN News shows the girl, identified as 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc, reaching the group of journalists on the main road and receiving assistance. They gave her water to drink and poured water on her severe burns to ease the pain. However, she and other children who had suffered the same fate required immediate medical attention and were rushed to the nearest hospital. It was apparently Nick Ut, the same photographer who had captured her suffering with his camera just minutes before, who intervened to help her.
According to some bystanders, including Kim Phuc's uncle, Nick Ut helped the girl and other children into the Associated Press van and took them to Cu Chi Hospital, where they received emergency treatment. However, this account remains highly controversial, as many believe it wasn't Ut who took the girls to the hospital, but someone else. In a 1984 documentary about the incident, Kim Phuc's mother can be seen telling the producers that the family was in a state of extreme panic, not knowing what to do with their daughter, until a man carried her on his back to the Cu Chi hospital. Despite the lack of clarity surrounding what happened, the fact that Kim Phuc survived her horrific injuries was far more significant in the overall picture.
Although emergency room doctors stated that the girl's injuries were too severe for her to survive the following weeks, Kim Phuc returned home alive after spending 14 long months in the hospital and undergoing 17 surgical procedures. She subsequently received specialized treatment at a hospital in West Germany, after which she was finally able to move normally again. In her adult life, Kim Phuc sought political asylum in Canada and obtained Canadian citizenship in 1997. That same year, she founded the Kim Phuc Foundation, dedicated to providing medical and psychological assistance to children affected by war. Phan Thi Kim Phuc currently lives with her family in Canada, where she continues her activism, and she has also been a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 1994.
The Stringer's story begins with photojournalist Gary Knight, who received an email in December 2022 from a man named Carl Robinson, who wanted to share something urgent with him. As Gary flew to Vietnam and met with Carl, the man revealed a truly astonishing story about the "Napalm Girl" photograph, recalling that he had been on the AP editing team and was the first to see the photo. When Carl first saw the photo on June 8, he initially thought it wouldn't be published due to the girl's fragile condition. As a photo editor for the Associated Press, Carl was responsible for controlling which photos were published and writing the captions for each one. He clearly remembers that the photograph of the "Napalm Girl" was never taken by Nick Ut, but by a Vietnamese freelance photographer named Nghe.
According to Carl, Nick Ut had indeed taken a photo of Kim Phuc, but from a side angle, which the editor felt was more suitable for publication since it wasn't as revealing as the frontal view. However, his boss, the legendary photographer Horst Faas, head of the Associated Press's South Asia photography unit, decided to use the frontal view. While Carl was writing the caption, it was Horst Faas himself who instructed him to mention that it had been taken by Nick Ut, an AP photographer.
In reality, it had been taken by Nghe, a man who worked as a freelance photojournalist, but Horst wanted it attributed to Nick, who was not only a staff photographer but also had a very good relationship with him. Due to his boss's difficult personality, Carl didn't object to the matter, neither at the time nor in the following years. After recounting how the photograph had been wrongly attributed to many of his close friends, he finally decided to reveal the story to the world in 2022, through Gary Knight.
Following the beliefs of Carl and some other photojournalists who had worked in Vietnam during the war, Horst Faas wanted to give Nick Ut a big opportunity, having brought the young photographer to the Associated Press. Furthermore, Nick's older brother, Huynh Thanh My, had also been a photojournalist, who tragically died while covering events in the Vietnam War on an assignment commissioned by Horst himself.
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