Portrait of Evil Vs. Evil Portrait

Difference btwn a trial and a show trial? At the end of a “trial” you pay the bill with money. At the end of a “show trial” you pay with a different form of currency.

The man in the lower photograph is reading the paper but he’s not looking at the picture of Saddam Hussein (is the newspaper read back to front? That would put Saddam on the “front” page). We don’t know if the man is reading about Saddam Hussein or another story. This suggests that Hussein is on his way to becoming one more news item competing for readers’ attention. The way Hussein is photographed looks almost stylish. It looks more like a celebrity photo than one of a an evil dictator.

Is it just my imagination, or does Saddam have his shirt buttoned wrong? Do you suppose Saddam and Bush share a stylist?
I couldn’t agree more that the timing of this trial is absolutely brilliant. But not to worry. They won’t really go to trial. They have to keep him on ice forever. There’s only one thing worse than a boogeyman and that’s a dead boogeyman.

By the way, what’s the difference between a trial and a show trial?
That in the first one you might be executed no matter what you do and in the second one you will executed, no matter what you do.

Except for a bit of harsh lighting, this is a “Vanity Fair”-type photo, and thanks to BAG for letting us know why it was taken – for use in propaganda by the rulers of Iraq, the US. I’d love to know who exactly the photographer was, and get his story.

For a show trial, you dye your eyebrows.

I am surprised that they put out a glamour shot that makes Saddaam look so good. Reminds me of Sean Connery.
They need to get the photographer that took the picture of Sheik Kallid Mohammad in that crazy stretched out tee shirt.

Is that Gap he’s wearing? Or maybe Banana Republic? Does he know that he’s actually dressed “in-style?” I’m sure there’s more to this picture, but I can’t get past the fact that if you put a male model in that shot it would be in Maxim and Vogue.

Fascinating picture. I like that on the near side, his shirt collar and jacket are neatly aligned, but the shirt is buttoned wrong making it jut out crazily on the far side.
The slightly too wide eyes looking nervously behind, the unkempt hair and the harsh light all contribute to the impression that this is a madman. Given that this appears to be a professional session (seamless background, well controlled light and shadows, compositional rules followed) all these elements would have been controlled.
I am likewise not an apologist for the man, but this is a carefully crafted image and could as easily have been crafted to make him look neutral.

The first thing I thought, too, was that he was getting advice on buttoning shirts from Bush…
I wonder if he can control when he gets haircuts, because when he had that preliminary court hearing a while ago, his hair was trimmed, and he had a nice suit jacket and white shirt, and he actually did look pretty dapper. The longer hair looks unkempt, though, and reminds me of how he looked when they caught him.
He never used to have a beard, so has he actually gotten religious – or does he want to give that impression? Or did he just get used to it while he was on the run, and now he likes it? Or does he think it looks good on him?
Arabic is read from right to left, so that’s the front page.
Even if the Sunnnis don’t support him, they’ll see this trial now as another dig at them by the Shia and the Kurds..

To me, the glamour-type shot says, “Look, we found a crazy guy masquerading as normal in a pin striped suit and a crisp, white shirt. But he doesn’t fool us.”

Actually – aside from the fact that he’s all cleaned up and groomed, as all above have mentioned, I think he looks sacred to death.
I almost, ALMOST, ALMOST feel sorry for him! But, of course, I remember who he really is – THAT EVILDOER who we just HAD to go to war against and have now dug ourselves such a deep hole we might be stuck in it forever.
I really am concerned though about his look of terror eliciting some pity among some Iraqis who may remember their country before we got our hands on it and destroyed it. In the days of some semblance of “peace” and “safety” – by comparison the citizens of Iraq now live in a constant reign of terror each minute as opposed to Saddam’s now & then reign of terror.
I can’t make judgements really – he was/is a very bad Dude but, to me, his pic makes him look pitiful, scared…dressed much nicer than when he was pulled out of his rat hole but his eyes speak volumes and what are the Iraqis thinking?

I immediately thought it was a NYT Magazine cover. Looks like a good imitation, with the high-contrast lighting and high-contrast concept: crisp white shirt and Italian suit and a face that tells a wild, Dennis Hopper-ish tale (story on p. 76). I see this as a sympathetic photograph exactly because he’s in a suit and it’s a professional photo shoot. It’s complicated, conflicted. He looks simultaneously normal and crazy. Like any of us could look.
In fact, he looks like anyone else on the New York City subway. This look is totally “in” here.
“Hey, isn’t that Salman Rushdie?”
“No. He’s bald. That’s Saddam Hussein.”
Then everyone would go back to reading the newspaper like the man in the second photograph.

A number of years ago, Andres Serrano made photographs of the homeless. They were not unlike the “noble savage” photos of Edward Curtis taken about a hundred years prior, except the Serrano photos were large format color and the Curtis ones are sepia toned.
This photo reminds me somewhat of those photos, the fear described above is fairly palpable, and adds to that “savage” look. Serrano made the homeless look quite noble, I thought.
Finally, somewhere in my memory bank, I recall photos of Charles Manson, perhaps at the time of various hearings (Has he ever been up for parole?). Somehow this also reminds me of images I saw of Manson.
Oh and about the trial. They are trying to make this a simple case, I guess. You know, one they can get the outcome they want. I am with the first person who said, execution, either way.

Reminded me immediately of this photo of Salvador Dali.

Rogue’s Gallery:
• Saddam Hussein as the Ace of Spades, 2003.
• Altered images of what he might have looked like in August 2003 (scroll down for CNN’s Gallery link.)
• At (and soon after) his capture in December 2003.
• In Baghdad court, May 2005.
• The BAG’s posted image from August 2005(?). Here is another, more businesslike image of Saddam in court on August 23, 2005.
He’s been wearing the same suit in court, and looks to be in pretty good physical condition, considering. Although particular angles and timing make him look mildly psychotic, I don’t see him as frightened.
Has any definite date been set for his trial? I hope it will be a “show trial” in the sense that it might be photographed well, or perhaps even televised. Although comparisons of Saddam to Hitler have been exaggerated, there would be some propaganda value—it’s not always a bad thing—in publishing images of him at trial, as with the Nuremberg defendants.
For one thing, the powers that be may want to show the “new” Iraq’s judicial system at work, however forgone its conclusion might be in this case. For another, let’s put the visuals down in the data banks for future reference.
BTW, Arabic, like Hebrew, is read from right to left. In the newspaper shot, Saddam’s picture is on the front page.

Susan pretty much nailed it. I think the top photo is rather professional and tightly cropped.
There is a subliminal sexuality to it. The casually opened collar is evocatave of Sean Connery, et al. White shirt, black jacket, off-white background, neat beard with a touch of grey, hair style not prominent due to lighting.
Subject is slightly off center, maybe to suggest a candid photo.
And then you see the eyes. Once seen, it’s almost impossible to not see them. They are at once commanding and angry. It’s as if someone said, “Hey, Killer look here” and that’s the reaction they got.
But I also see a tiredness, a world weariness. It’s as if he’s ready for it all to be over, finally. Maybe that will be the dynamic during “the trial.” His defiance in the presence of his enemies and his total weariness with life.

“I almost, ALMOST, ALMOST feel sorry for him!”
I think Susan makes a good point. Arabs often use the word “humiliation”; even people who hate Saddam watched that film of him after he was captured (where the medic was checking inside his mouth and all) that was shown over and over again, and felt like he was being unnecessarily humiliated. And that, by extension, they were being humiliated. The treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib – and Guantanamo – also involves humiliating them.
So if they try to humiliate him, that won’t go over well with a lot of people, especially since the process is seen as being controlled by the U.S. I think some people feel he deserves some level of respect because of the position he held.
On the other hand, if they let him speak freely, the judge might look weak. In that last court appearance, he was lecturing the judge and the judge wasn’t very impressive.

Interesting photo of Salvador Dali. A painting of his, of the crucifiction, hastily drawn, sick that day in NYC, hung at Riker’s Island, the prison built on houshold solid waste in 1903, currently a motor causeway to it from Queens where before a ferry from the Bronx went to it, cases from there still heard in the Bronx, but was stolen, replaced, by the prison guards! Dali once sold hand water color “Alice in and Wonderlands” in Walden Books for $800 (ca. 1972).
I wonder, about the war trials at Nuremberg, which set the precedent for people who in the military, under orders, are now since that trial, supposed to refuse the order if it is against humanity and perhaps International treaty. I was told the “I was just following orders” no longer applies after the trial of the Nazis and the investigation by Airey Neave (of MI9) of the Krupp industrial conglomerate, who died from a mercury tilt car bomb leaving a garage, just prior to the election Margaret Thatcher, who just turned 80, he said to be the architect of her coming to power in Great Britain. His wife was elevated to Baroness. I read the account of the Nuremburg Nazi war crime trials from the perspective of the American Junior Prosecutor, I think whose book came out about that time and I think the resposibility issue was brought up by him. I wonder if Saddam was.

By most accounts, Saddam was defiant and combative in the courtroom today.
ABC News has some photo and video links on their front page, and other video sources will probably appear later.
One interesting visual note is the change of clothing that the court granted to some of Saddam’s co-defendants. From the LA Times:

At one point, one of the defendants, Awad Bandar, protested that the court had robbed him of his identity by not allowing him to wear traditional Arab headdress called “agal” in the courtroom.
The judge then called a break to allow four of the defendants to wear the headdress, considered symbolic Arab identity throughout the Middle East.

Wear the right costume and the part plays itself, yes?
Hussein wore the same suitjacket sans tie outfit as before. In an American courtroom, that would be sufficent grounds for contempt: maybe the new Iraq’s judicial system has a progressive outlook after all…

“just prior to the election Margaret Thatcher, who just turned 80″
just prior to the election < of > Margaret Thatcher, who just turned 80
A few years ago, Margaret Thatcher was granted an honorary Ph.D. at nearby Manhattanville College, how to cure college apathy they said, having her.

XinhuaNet has a composite of Saddam portraits, spanning about 60 years.

Aside from the fact that he is scared to death I am struck by the fact that it is basically a “glamor shot”. The kind that they used to take of the old Hollywood stars. Who took this shot? Who published it?.
He may be personally terrified but he’s still a “star”.

the thing that struck me is that in the newspaper he is not wild eyed in his left eye, as oppsed to the glamour shot where his left eye is open wide and his eyebrow raised. is this what you meant when you said you raised one eyebrow when you saw the newspaper photo shot? was the tribunal shot doctored to make him look more evil, thereby revealing the courts foregone conclusions about the trial?

What’s the difference between a trial and a show trial? Well Gwynne Dyer raises an interesting argument: “If they had taken Adolf Hitler alive in 1945, they would certainly have put him on trial. But what if they had ignored Hitler’s responsibility for starting World War II and his murder of 6 million Jews, and simply put him on trial for torturing and executing a couple of hundred people whom he suspected of involvement in the July 1944 plot to kill him?
You would find that bizarre, would you not?”

i like sadam face the most quit funny for me. Wol wol that is his fact ha ha.