Given her career achievements, and that name alone, it’s quite a surprise that Margaret Moth isn’t more of a well known figure. Working as a full-time camera operator in 1970s New Zealand at a time when no other women held such a position in her homeland, nor Australia, Moth – born Margaret Wilson (she was inspired to change her name following her first ever skydive and the plane she jumped out of) – was breaking the mould ahead of her time.
Leaving behind Dunedin on the cusp of 1980, Moth moved to Texas, quickly making a name for herself as a weather operator who fearlessly risked life and limb to get “the shot” amidst unpredictable storms. It was this mentality that drew CNN to hire her and put her in literal war zones, with Moth seeing front-line action in such places as Iraq, Bosnia and Chechnia.
If you had watched any major news broadcast across the 1990s specifically, you had very likely seen Moth’s work. You just didn’t know it. But, thanks to a warrior princess of a different kind, actress Lucy Lawless, the world will know Moth’s legacy through the powerful Never Look Away, which documents her professional rise and personal fall; in 1992 Moth was near-fatally shot in the jaw by a sniper in Sarajevo, but, in spite of such, she was back at work 2 years later.
Whilst Moth proved a private person, her professional footprint has a history of documentation, and Lawless has masterfully compiled archival material and home video to weave together a narrative that, as tragic as it may be, earns a sense of entertainment as it highlights Moth’s inherent playfulness. Her personality proved uncompromising and she had an unmatched enthusiasm when it came to recklessly abandoning her fear regarding her steps into unknown territory.
Though not every aspect of Moth’s life is covered – you get the sense there are some things people won’t divulge – Lawless has painted a striking portrait of a woman who lived a multitude of lives and refused to submit to what society expected of her; you can’t help but admire the sheer tenacity in her professional temperament taking charge in always, always, making sure she got the perfect assignment shot.
At once unflinching in the images she captured across multiple warzones and insightful when it comes to her ex-boyfriends portrayal of their affairs with her, Never Look Away, with its fitting title, celebrates not only a female figure like no other, but the essential placement of the photojournalist in our media, and why their quest for truth remains key in an treacherous landscape.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Never Look Away will be available to rent digitally from November 22nd, 2024.
