Amir Yaziv’s Hollywood Strings uses the format of the face-to-face interview under the classic documentary value of “testimony”—a form that bestows validity and “truth” regardless of its specific content. The witnesses are three Israeli producers who took part in Hollywood productions that were filmed in Israel during the 1980s. Israel reveals its charm as a cinematic site that offers desert (Biblical) landscapes and the cooperation of its army. The “testimony” delivered here recounts how the three producers managed to get the Israeli army to place soldiers, as well as captured Arab weapons from its various wars, at the disposal of Hollywood illusion-making. Yatziv dots these testimonies with still photographs, taken from online albums of war veterans, which were shot at the original locations depicted in the movies filmed in Israel: photos of Russian and Mujahidin troops in Afghanistan, and of American troops in Normandy. The illusory and “the real” come together in this narrative, within the sphere of image-construction.
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