Cinematographers and their Craft

[moira finnie]

Here's a spot to talk about the artistic craftsmen who make it all visible, and ask such impertinent, burning questions as:

Did Billy Bitzer really invent the closeup?
Did Gregg Toland "invent" the ceiling shot in Citizen Kane?
Which cameraman made Powell & Pressburger films more magical:
Erwin Hillier or Jack Cardiff?
What movie imagery knocked your socks off?
and lots more...

[ken123]

" The Queen of Technicolor " knocks my socks off. Gregg Toland also did great work for Ford, The Informer and The Long Voyage Home.

[benwhowell]

James Wong Howe was a master cinematographer-from silents to '75's "Funny Lady."
He developed a method to make "blue eyes" register well in film close ups (initially for Mary Miles Minter) by using black velvet as a frame for the camera lens to peek through...other "stars" requested he photograph them and a legend was born.
He was famous for low-contrast lighting of interiors and deep focus cinematography-keeping both the foreground and background in focus...including his impressive "location" work. (See "Pursued," "Sweet Smell Of Success," "The Old Man And The Sea," "Hud" and many others.)
He put a camerman (on roller skates with a hand held camera) in the boxing ring in "Body And Soul."
He put cameras on the actors' waists in "The Brave Bulls."
He used a "fish eye" lens in "Seconds."
A true pioneer!

[SSO Admins]

I became a fan of Conrad. L. Hall posthumously. When I walked out of Road to Perdition, I told my friend "that movie is a shoe-in for best cinematoraphy." When I found out that it was the same cameraman as Electra Glide in Blue and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid I became convinced he was a god.

And yes, he won the Oscar.

Bully Blitzer was also amazing.

[benwhowell]

Conrad Hall is one my favorites too.
He also did "Cool Hand Luke," "Fat City," "The Day Of The Locust" and "American Beauty" (Oscar win.)
A couple of my favorites are "In Cold Blood-"a memorable scene from that movie involves Robert Blake sitting in front of a window as rain pours down outside. Hall captured the shadows of the falling rain on Blake's cheek. It is quite haunting and beautiful.
And the wide screen lush color photography of that two character "macho ballet," "Hell In The Pacific" is stunning.

[benwhowell]

Looking forward to "Bound For Glory" this sunday on TCM-with the cinematography of Haskell Wexler. He won an Oscar for it. He also did "The Best Man," "In The Heat Of The Night," "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?" (Another Oscar win for b & w.)
He apprenticed as a camera operator for James Wong Howe.

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Big fan of James Wong Howe, here. Conrad Hall, too.
Cinemagodraphers!

[Moraldo Rubini]

I'm familiar with some of Billy Bitzer's work with D. W. Griffths. Is he the one who "invented" the closeup?

I wonder how much influence paintings had on cinematic framing. Did cinematographers/directors learn to compose long shots by looking at landscapes and genre scenes? Painting changed because of the invention of the camera; did painting also affect camerawork?

[Lzcutter]

Marco,

Many of the men and women who became the top of their field in cinematography have a love of painting. They may not be able to paint worth a tinker's darn but many of them talk in Vision of Light (I think it is, the doc by the American Society of Cinematographers) about loving the great works by the master painters. One reason so many went into cinematography was they wanted to learn to paint with light.

And those that rose to the top of the pyramid: James Wong Howe, William Daniels, Billy Bitzer, Conrad Hall, Haskell Wexler, Greg Toland, Michael Chapman, Robert Surtee, Jack Cardiff, Vilmos Zsigmond, Lazlo Kovacs, Bert Glennon and his son, James, Archie Stout and so many others, did learn to do just that.

To me the top of the pyramid is James Wong Howe, Billy Bitzer, William Daniels, Jack Cardiff, Gregg Toland (not for Kane but for Grapes of Wrath), Conrad Hall and Michael Chapman.

I can't even begin to figure out who comes first. They are always there fighting for me to name them number one, but it's just too hard.

I will forever be grateful to Sam Mendes for hiring Conrad Hall for Road to Peredition. It was a good film made memorable because of Conrad Hall's talent as a cinematographer. Not a bad way to end a career that had spanned a number of great films.

One another similar note:
There is a wonderful still photographer who captured wonderful black and white photographs of trains in the 1950s Appalachia area. His name is O. Winston Link. His photographs of that era and the trains are pure poetry.

I got a large framed one for Mr Cutter years ago. It shows an old train going behind a drive in theater filled with teenagers and cars (circa 1955).
On the screen of the drive in movie is a jet plane.

It captures the collision of the past and the future beautifully.

I highly recommend seeking out Link's photographs in an exhibit.

[benwhowell]

Another interesting cinematographer is Floyd Crosby. He won an Oscar for his first film, "Tabu: A Story Of The South Seas."(1931) This was F.W. Murnau's last film.
He worked on many documentaries in the '30's/'40's-including pilot training films during his stint in the military.
He worked on "High Noon" and "From Here To Eternity."
Then he found his home working on "B" movies...including several for Roger Corman and all those beach movies with Frankie and Annette.
He's also the father of rock and roll legend, David Crosby.

[dfordoom]

I love film noir, so it's probably not surprising that my favourite cinematographers are John Alton and Nick Musuraca. Alton's work in He Walked by Night is just stunning.