"Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff" (2010)

I have long been intrigued by the career of Jack Cardiff (1914-2009). He was the cinematographer of three exceedingly good-locking immediately postwar color movies written and directed by "the Archers," Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Stairway to Heaven (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), and The Red Shoes (1948). He won an Oscar for "Black Narcissus," but though "Red Shoes" was nominated for best picture and won an Oscar for its set decoration, neither Powell/Pressburger's direction nor Cardiff's cinematography were even nominated. The color cinematography Oscar went to the not especially memorable work of frequent Hitchcock cinematographer Joseph A. Valentine (Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope), Joseph A. Valentine (Rope, Quo Vadis), and recurrent John Ford cinematographer Joseph A. Valentine (The Quiet Man, Mr. Roberts, The Searchers), for the flop "Joan of Arc" (btw, Gabriel Figueroa won the cinematography Golden Globe for "The Pearl").

I hoped to learn why the Archers then dispensed with Cardiff's services for their very painterly 1951 "Tales of Hoffman," which was shot by Christopher Challis, as were later Archer movies, none of which was as good as "The Red Shoes." Since the documentary "Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff" (2010) has interviews with the nonagenarian but completely articulate Cardiff, Thelma Schoonmaker (Powell's widow and Martin Scorsese's editor) and Scorsese (who came to know Powell well and who supervised the restoration of "Hoffman"), I hope there would be some explanation of this. Alas, there was not.

Cardiff turned director, making one great film, the adaptation with Dean Stockwell, Wendy Hiller, and Trevor Howard of D. H. Lawrence's autobiographical Sons and Lovers, (1960), for which Cardiff was nominated for a best direction Oscar and Freddie Francis won an Oscar for black-and-white cinematography. (Francis would win another for color cinematography of "Glory" in 1989 and a BAFTA nomination for his work for Martin Scorcese's 1991 "Cape Fear.")

Cardiff went on to direct some A-movies, including taking over "The Young Cassady" from an ailing John Ford, My Geisha, and The Long Ships and then made what I have called the worst movie ever made, "The Girl on a Motorcycle" (also known as "Naked Under Leather" in 1968 with Marianne Faithful and Alain Delon (both of whom I adore in other projects). I can understand that "The Girl on a Motorcycle" would be a career-ender (as I can see that Powell's "Peeping Tom" pretty much ended Powell's).

Carrdiff shrugged off any loss of status in returning to being a cameraman and the documentary-maker Craig McCall is far too polite to ask about the lower quality of the movies from the second phase of Cardiff's cinematographer career ("Death on the Nile" is probably the best known; Cardiff said he enjoyed shooting "Rambo: First Blood Part II" (1985)).

Cardiff was genial and eager to praise the beauty of Ava Gardner (Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, The Barefoot Contessa), Audrey Hepburn (War and Peace), Marilyn Monroe (who asked for him for "The Prince and the Showgirl") and the camera-savviness of Marlene Dietrich (Knight Without Armour). He also shot black-and-white stills of them and 16mm film of the central African locations of "The African Queen." Lauren Bacall who was on location there and on "The Barefoot Contessa" provides her own praise for Cardiff's work and that of her dead husband, Humphrey Bogart. In addition to Bacall, Kirk Douglas )The Vikings), Charlton Heston (The Awakening), Moira Shearer (Red Shoes), and Kathleen Byron (Black Narcissus) praise his work on them and on the movies in which they appeared.

Cardiff does not explain why he considered his work on Alfred Hitchcock's "Under Capricorn" (1949) "my greatest achievement" nor does he say anything about its star, Ingrid Bergman. He has typical stories of Orson Welles deviousness and Erroll Flynn alcoholism,

Looking at his filmography (some of it strung out above), it seems to me that Cardiff shot a lot of disappointing movies, though they often looked good (Under Capricorn, The Magic Box, The Master of Ballantrae, The Barefoot Contessa, War and Peace, The Prince and the Showgirl, and Fanny from his first phase, most everything from his second). I wonder if he might have had anything to say, not least from having experience as a director as well as a cinematographer, about the limits of what good cinematography can do in narrative movies. We'll never know. I'd have liked to ask the WTF question about "The Girl on the Motorcycle," too.

If Cardiff had a personal life, it is entirely MIA from the documentary. Cardiff also painted and alluded to work by Vermeer, Turner, and Van Gogh, though nothing specific, except arguably the heightened light in Turner seascapes. One sees the monstrously big and heavy early Technicolor cameras with which Cardiff had to work his magic,

So, though I enjoyed the clips from Cardiff's work (the most extensive sources were Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, three movies on which he did especially outstanding work). I was not satisfied by "Cameraman" as a documentary providing insight into process or production of motion-picture-making. (A better one is the Haskell Wexler, "Tell Them Who You Are" (2004).


DVD bonuses include an unenlightening one featuring Craig McCall, more stills and behind-the-scene (home movies form movie shoots) by Cardiff, Freddie Francis and Martin Scorsese appear in an 11.5-minute bonus feature about the relationship of pictures to picture (movie), precisely what I would most have liked to hear Cardiff discuss. There's also a vintage 5-minute short on "Working With Three-Strip Technicolor" with Cardiff and Christopher Challis.