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Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff Blu-Ray Review (1 Viewer)

MatthewA

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A Matter of Life and Death. Black Narcissus. The Red Shoes. Under Capricorn. The African Queen. The Barefoot Contessa. Rambo: First Blood Part II. What do these films have in common? If you guessed that they were all photographed by the late, great Jack Cardiff, you’re correct. In the engaging and intimate documentary Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, Scottish filmmaker Craig McCall spent 14 years with him as he discussed his multi-decade career, while he covered examples from his work in cinematography, still photography, and painting. Legendary actors and directors pay affectionate tribute to a man who is known today as one of the leading cinematographers of the Golden Age of American and British cinema.



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Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff



Studio: Strand Releasing


Year: 2010


Rated: NR


Length: 86 Minutes


Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1


Resolution: 1080p


Languages: English


Subtitles: none (Closed-Captioned for the deaf and hard of hearing)


MSRP: $34.99


Film Release Date: May 5, 2010


Disc Release Date: August 9, 2011


Review Date: August 21, 2011




The Movie:


4/5



And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And from that light came a number of man-made inventions, including photography, invented in 1826 by Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. For the first time, light could be captured on a piece of silver nitrate and capture a still image. 65 years later, an invention by Thomas Alva Edison called the kinetoscope added the illusion of motion to those images, creating a whole new art form we now call “movies.” The Director of Photography is often unnoticed and uncelebrated except by film buffs. One of the most notable among those painters of light is Jack Cardiff (1914-2009), who could proudly claim to have worked with such esteemed directors as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes), Alfred Hitchcock (Under Capricorn), John Huston (The African Queen), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (The Barefoot Contessa), King Vidor (the 1956 version of War and Peace), and possibly the only man who can claim to have shot films starring both Humphrey Bogart and Sylvester Stallone.



Cardiff began his film career as a child actor in the late 1910s. Eventually he worked his way through the ranks on the other side of the camera from clapper boy to camera operator; when Technicolor opened a facility in the UK, they needed camera operators. Cardiff admitted his lack of technical knowledge but was selected because of how he had observed the use of light in paintings by Rembrandt and other artists. He worked as a cameraman on the first Technicolor film shot in Europe (1937’s Wings of the Morning, with Henry Fonda), is big break came from photographing a series of Technicolor travelogues, and eventually served as DP on Western Approaches, the first non-travelogue documentary shot in the process. In 1946, by which time the British film industry had finally hit its stride, his innovative work on A Matter of Life and Death began an association with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that continued with Black Narcissus in 1947 and The Red Shoes in 1948, the former earning him an Academy Award. Working through the 1950s and 1960s in films from John Huston’s The African Queen to Laurence Olivier’s The Prince and the Showgirl to Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings to Joshua Logan’s production of Fanny, he eventually moved into direction, receiving an Oscar nomination for 1960’s Sons and Lovers, one of 13 films he directed. With the decline of the British film industry in the 1970s, Cardiff went back into cinematography, working in films from the Disney studios’ Ride a Wild Pony to Rambo: First Blood Part II. He continued to work occasionally into his 90s; his last film credits are in 2007. The industry honored his groundbreaking work and unparalleled craftsmanship with an honorary Oscar in 2001.



Shot over a period of 14 years by Scottish filmmaker Craig McCall, Cameraman is a film that will appeal both to die-hard film buffs and those with only a passing familiarity with classic cinema. The film is informative and educational yet always entertaining and never pedantic or bogged down with overly intricate technical detail; even casual fans of film should find it accessible. Far removed from the typical talking heads documentary, the film feels like a casual conversation with a man whose career paints a portrait of nine decades of movie history; Cardiff effortlessly bounces between reminiscences about his films, his still photographs, and his paintings, while Martin Scorsese discusses the influence these films had on his own work (showing how a scene in The Red Shoes influenced one in Raging Bull), and the actors and directors he worked with speak about their admiration for him; McCall was able to obtain interviews with Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Charlton Heston, John Mills, Kim Hunter, Richard Fleischer, Alan Parker, Peter Yates, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and others who help the film paint an affectionate and intimate portrait of the man and his work.



The Video:


3.5/5



The film is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, while most of the Academy ratio and Cinemascope material is presented at their correct respective ratios of 1.33:1 or 2.35:1. There is a wide variance in the origins of the source material; the interview footage is on 16mm with a moderate level of grain but strong and natural color saturation with inky blacks, well-controlled highlights, and reasonable sharpness. The film clips vary in quality based on the transfers available to the producers; the best ones come from the recent restorations of Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes which, of course, can be experienced in their entirety on their respective Criterion Blu-Rays, while Cardiff's Kodachrome home movies can look surprisingly good at times despite the dirt and scratches. It is obvious when standard-definition video footage has been upconverted to HD and converted to 24p; the jagged edges are fairly distracting.



The Audio:


3.5/5



The film comes with a Dolby Digital 5.1 track that is, sadly, encoded at only 448 kbps. Nevertheless, the sound is clear and the dialogue easy to understand, even Kirk Douglas’s stroke-induced slurred speech. The only negatives stem from the distortion inherent in the clips from older films.



The Extras:


4/5



The extras segment delves deeper into Cardiff’s life and career. All are 1080p and 16x9.



—Interview with Craig McCall by Ian Christie (12:52): Director McCall talks about the process of doing a documentary about Cardiff. He discusses how he met the man, persuaded directors and actors to participate, and his views on new technologies. (NOTE: When I met Jack Cardiff in 2005 in Bradford, England at a film festival, I was one of the ones saying “they don’t make them like that anymore,” yet he was excited about the technological changes in motion pictures. Can you imagine what he could do with a Red One camera?)



—Jack’s Actress Portraits (4:01): Cardiff relates anecdotes about taking still photographs of some of the screen’s most beautiful women.



—Jack’s Behind-the-Scenes Movies (10:01): Cardiff discusses the 16mm Kodachrome home movies he shot on the set of The African Queen, his unfinished 1953 directorial debut William Tell, and 1957’s Legend of the Lost. Many of them are of excellent quality despite the scratches and specks of dirt that pop up frequently, proving that Cardiff could work as well with a consumer camera as he could with a Technicolor behemoth.



—Cinematographer and Director Relationship (11:34): Interviews from 1998-2000 with directors Martin Scorsese, Alan Parker and Richard Fleischer, cinematographers Christopher Challis and Freddie Francis (who is in conversation with Cardiff; they had such a relationship on Sons and Lovers), and actors Charlton Heston and Lauren Bacall and discuss how a DP and a Director work together.



—Working With Three-Strip Technicolor (4:54): Cardiff, Christopher Challis, George E. Turner talk about a basic explanation of the Technicolor process and the anecdotes about the many restrictions on the photography placed by the company; Cardiff even shows the insides of a preserved Technicolor camera.



—Photo Galleries:


*Actress Portraits: A small selection of stunning still photographs of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Silvana Mangano, and Anita Ekberg.


*Production stills: Behind-the-scenes shots of this film and a select few of the films on which Cardiff worked



—Original Theatrical Trailer (2:01): A short preview for the film mixing Cardiff’s comments with the praise he received from actors he worked with and directors who cited his films as influences.



Final Score:


4/5



An invaluable documentary for any practitioner, student or aficionado of film or photography, Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff is a fascinating and enjoyable journey through a career full of technical innovations and artistic excellence, with many high-quality clips that do justice to his body of work. Hopefully this film will not only help continue to generate interest in the classic films that he in no small way helped to create, but inspire others to innovate and create the great works of 21st century (and beyond) cinematic art yet to come. Highly recommended.
 

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