In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.
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Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Jack Cardiff was a master cinematographer who became inspired through the Powell & Pressburger partnership with films such as Life and death of Colonel Blimp, A matter of life and death, The red shoes and Black Narcissus which bagged him an Oscar for best colour cinematography.Cardiff in interviews filmed over several years comes off as modest, engaging, enthusiastic and knowledgeable. We see the influence of paintings from the masters in his work as well as problem solving with the challenges he faced in the still early days of cinema, now its the special effects people who take care of it all.As well as numerous clips of films he had worked on, collaborators we have super fans such as Martin Scorcese who has previously expressed his admiration of the films of Powell & Pressburger. It would had been nice to have heard from Francis Coppola another fan and some more British directors.Cardiff later moved into directing and was Oscar nominated for Best Director for Sons and Lovers but when the directing work dried up he moved back into cinematography, even lighting Rambo: First Blood Part 2 a film I have in the past complained about not being able to see anything as all the action took place in the dark.
Jack Cardiff was a cinematographer who used art as his inspiration, with magnificent results, which can be found in films such as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. His sense of color, lighting, and knowledge of painting all fed his work, creating some of film's most stunning moments."Cameraman: The Life of Work of Jack Cardiff" was assembled in 2010, though obviously some of the interviews were much older. The documentary traces Cardiff's life back to its beginnings with show business parents, some work as a child actor, as a gopher on film sets, and finally, interested in travel, joining a film studio's camera department so he could see the world.With his knowledge of the master painters and the way they used light and color, Cardiff rose through the ranks, as a camera operator, and director of photography for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Archers.There were interviews with Martin Scorsese, Lauren Bacall, Moira Shearer, Kathleen Byron and Charlton Heston speaking about Cardiff's work -- and he worked with everyone, Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Sylvester Stallone, etc. - but what speaks to the viewer most are the glorious images on the screen, and Cardiff talking about how he created them.As much as the program focused on the beauty of Black Narcissus, I wanted more! The incredible Himalayan scenery, created in the studio with glass shots and hanging miniatures is some of the most magnificent work ever.Highly recommended, a great portrait of an energetic artist who worked into his nineties and said he might slow down in ten years - just fantastic.
Made shortly before his death Cameraman: the life and work of Jack Cardiff is an excellent bio on Cardiff and due to his long career the history of color film as well. Working into his nineties the highly lucid and spry octogenarian covers a lot of ground with emphasis on his collaboration with the the team of Powell and Pressburger at Archer studios which produced two of the finest color works in film history Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. There of course were decades of others that also shined from Archer and beyond with The African Queen, Pandora and the Flyiong Dutchman, War and Peace and The Vikings and Cameraman shows healthy snippets from each.Amiable and self effacing Cardiff himself makes for a wonderful guide mixing anecdotes and methods free of ego and judgment. This doc is a must for film historians as well as anyone that has ever been under the spell of celluloid magic.
British cinematographer Jack Cardiff, who made a name for himself with his splashy camera-work on the classic Powell & Pressburger films "A Matter of Life and Death", "Black Narcissus", and "The Red Shoes", recounts the cinematic milestones of his long career. Transitioning from British cinema to Hollywood filmmaking in the 1950s, Cardiff went on to work with such diverse directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Henry Hathaway, King Vidor, and John Huston. The film clips are well used, and the celebrity fans (such as Martin Scorsese) and co-workers who comment are interesting, though the second half of this documentary (after Cardiff moved from director of photography to the director's chair) is left a bit sketchy. Receiving an Academy Award nomination as Best Director for 1960's "Sons and Lovers", Cardiff admits this was the peak of his professional career...and yet we are left uncertain why such a talented and respected man didn't receive better assignments in later years. Still, finishing off with Cardiff's recent honorary Oscar celebration for the bulk of his work was a nice touch, proving that wisdom and talent go hand in hand--and age doesn't necessarily diminish either.
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