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THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
flashback
T o hear him talk you could easi- ly think that Jack Cardiff’s illus- trious career in movies has been one charming accident after another. A career, he mod- estly suggests, that has been founded on good luck - except
the harder he worked the luckier he got. Now a hale and hearty 83, he reflects on a life spent working with some of the legends of the screen, at times of great technological advancement and wonder- ful challenges, as recounted in his recent autobiography Magic Hour. But Cardiff’s philosophy, like his best work, may at first have seemed to challenge the accepted cinematic wisdom. For where modern cin- ematographers learn their craft by watch- ing movies, Cardiff sought to emulate
great artists of another sort.
“I was lucky enough to realise early on
that the study of painting would help me
in my lighting of films,” he explains, “because the paintings that we see have to have light, and the artist would sometimes manufacture the light to suit their needs. They would learn everything about light so that every painting had a story of light in it, particularly people like Turner who used what we called chiaroscuro to light to such dramatic effect.”
Learning his job at a time of enormous tech- nological change, Cardiff became the first British cameraman to be trained by Technicolor in their new colour process and not long after began an association with director Michael Powell on some of Britain’s greatest movies.
“My first big break was when Micky hired me for A Matter of Life & Death,” he recalls cheerfully. “He was a very courageous director. For instance this was a film about Heaven and Earth and when the film was about to start I asked if Heaven would be in colour and Earth in black & white, and he
said: ‘no, the reverse’.
I asked him why, and
he said it’s because
people would not be
expecting it that way round. Clever thinking.”
Cardiff then won an Oscar for his work on Powell’s Black Narcissus, an atmospheric Himalayan set drama which was actually shot at Pinewood. He also scored successes with, Powell again, The Red Shoes (although Academy politics denied him a deserved second Oscar), Scott of the Antarctic, The African Queen, War & Peace and - as director - Sons And Lovers, which also won an Oscar for its monochrome cinematography (by another legendary cameraman, Freddie Francis).
Although his career has spanned an amazing period in the development of film, and he has clearly had a lot of fun working with some of the greatest stars in Hollywood’s dream factories,
Cardiff is not content merely to look back. He enjoys movies today as much as he ever did, admits to being “obsessed” with good lighting on screen and cites The Bill as a televsion show of quite exemplary technical achievement.
But if it seems hard to equate then with now, the magic and mys- tique of Hollywood’s past with the seamy side of its present, there is a good reason why we remember the allure and magic of yesteryear.
“I think that most of the stars had a particular quality about them,” he adds thoughtfully. “Marilyn Monroe had it, without doubt. When she was on the screen you couldn’t take your
eyes off her. But if you went to Hollywood you’d find thousands of girls who had the same vital sta- tistics, the same attractive looks, some even more beautiful perhaps, but they wouldn’t have that speck of genius that she had.”
As he says this, with typical good grace and humility, a photograph hangs framed and in pride of place in the Cardiff kitchen. It’s a stunningly beautiful shot of Marilyn Monroe (centre page), taken by him when they worked together in London on The Prince And The Showgirl. Inscribed in her own handwriting is the personal memento: ‘Dearest Jack, if only I could be the way you created me. I love you, Marilyn.’ ■ ANWAR BRETT
Photos: Jack Cardiff with Shirley MacLaine, Marilyn Monroe , whom he also photographed (centre) - Errol Flynn, Sylvester Stallone and finally with Alfred Hitchcock.