Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (2010) - full transcript

(Audience applauds)

Good evening.

For those of us here tonight

that are 70 years old or younger,

Jack Cardiff was shooting film

before we were born.

(Kirk Douglas)

I don't do many interviews.

But when I was invited to speak

about Jack Cardiff, my friend,

I couldn't resist,

because Jack Cardiff

is a...an amazing guy.

(Scorsese)

Every time I saw certain names,

and one of the names

that kept cropping up was Cardiff.

Every time I saw these names, I knew

I was in for something very special.

And I began to have a very strong

affinity towards British cinema,

because of my recognition

of Cardiff's name, actually.

The way a movie is photographed

creates a mood,

and creates the mood of the movie,

so that the audience is prepared

for the kind of movie it's going to be.

(lnaudible)

Cinematography is central to film.

Motion pictures is...

is the art form of the 20th century,

and you can't do them

without the camera.

Going over to Bogie, he's dead.

She's dead, she's dead, she's dead.

She's alive.

I'm just alive.

It's fantastic, isn't it?

- (lnterviewer) You've outlivedthem all.

- Yeah.

Incredible.

I don't know. Do you think

it's a tragic industry to be in sometimes?

No, I don't think so, I think

it's a nonsensical thing...job to be in,

because it's full of, um...

full of hypocrisy, hyperbole.

Just about everything you can think of.

At this moment

your room is still not ready.

- Thank you.

- Your name?

If anybody said, "Who is that guy? "

because I don't think anybody

really knows who I am,

I'd say, "Well, I used to be

a stand-in for Frank Sinatra."

(Man speaking French)

(Speaks French)

(Sister Ruth laughs)

(Audience applauds)

- That was made 50 years ago.

- Cinquante ans.

How are you?

Pleased to meet you.

- Nice to see you.

- Hello.

Come up a bit on this one,

and they're putting on a narrow one

on the number four.

(lnterviewer) How oldare you now?

A couple of weeks ago, I was 91.

- Andyou're still working?

- Yes, well, not for long.

Another ten years,

and I'll have to take it easy, I think.

- Can you put it on now?

- Yes, sir.

Where you are now with the smoke.

That's it.

- When didyou begin, Jack?

- In this business?

Er...well, I started in 1 9...

1 91 8.

As a kid actor.

That's a long way back, isn't it?

And that's myself

when I was about five years of age.

- You'dalready been in a movie.

- Yes, I had.

Do you remember, as a child,

the fiirst fiilm you acted in?

Very, very fuzzily. I know

that it was called "My Son, My Son".

I was four years of age,

and it was a silent picture, of course.

The director used to shout

the instructions through the megaphone.

"Now smile a bit, look over to her.

You love her. Come on, you do this."

That was...that was easy, you know.

In between stage shows,

my mother and father

would work as extras sometimes.

The standard rate of pay in those days,

the extras got one guinea a day.

And there was something like,

I don't know, 1 50 or 200 extras.

They were paid at the end of the day

by filing past a little booth.

After a while,

they realised what they could do,

they'd get to the end of the queue

and they'd change hats,

or put on a different coat,

and they'd go by

and they'd take another guinea.

They were making a fortune

until they were found out.

The queue was filing by for hours

collecting guineas.

I had a different home every week.

I went to about 300 schools in my youth

and learnt practically nothing.

So where didyou pick up

allyour skills?

I read a pornographic book

by Frank Harris.

But in between the porn, there was

all these great names he mentioned.

He'd met all these great writers

and painters and musicians.

And I went out to Foyles

and bought all the books he mentioned

in his book, and I read the lot.

That started it,

and I kept on reading ever since.

So you learned

in between bits ofipornography?

Yes.

The first job I had was really

a kind of runner boy. I was...

The director had

some kind of flatulence problem.

He was...

he had to be given Vichy water.

I had to hand him fresh, cold

Vichy water at any time of the day,

so I had to sort of have it all ready.

That was a silent picture.

And then the next picture

was the beginning of sound.

Hitchcock was in the next stage.

When sound films first came out,

they had to be, obviously, synchronised,

and to do that we had clappers.

which was just two pieces of wood

that did that,

and then you'd put the sound

against the picture as it closed.

And the first clappers, they thought

it was such an important function,

that they gave it to the director,

and he would solemnly

announce the scene

and then clap and sit down

and say, "Action."

It was considered a very vital thing.

But after a while, he found

it was a bit of a bore doing that,

so they put the job with the young

clapper boy, as he was called.

He was a number boy, and he became

a clapper boy, and I used to do that.

4 take 1.

While I was at B&D Studios,

I was working on British quota pictures,

which had to be completed

in two to three weeks.

I was then operating the camera,

and you couldn't make any mistakes

cos they'd never do another take,

there wasn't time or money.

(Challis) Korda brought over

a lot of very good people

and, I think, was instrumental in founding

the sort of British school, if you like.

I mean, he gave people the opportunity

to learn from masters of their craft.

(Singing)

Run, run, Orlando.

(Cardiff) A lot of fascinating stars

were coming over, and big directors,

and, what was most important,

very good top Hollywood cameramen.

(Crowd shouting)

What are you waiting for?

Dietrich was a big sensation, of course,

and she...she used to put

gold dust in her hair.

She knew about lighting,

she'd worked with Josef von Sternberg.

She would have been

a great cameraman,

and she knew that

that lighting had to be so high,

45 degrees,

to make a shadow under the nose,

and most cameramen over the years

have done the same sort of lighting.

She had a slightly turned-up nose.

Like Marilyn Monroe, in fact.

So to straighten it out

she had this white line down here,

and then inside here,

inside the eyes, she put this white.

See this white inside.

It must've been painful to do this.

She looked gorgeous.

But she was in command of the lighting.

She used to have a full-length mirror

by the side of the camera.

She'd look in the mirror and say, "Harry,

the back light could get a bit hotter,

"and how about the kicker light? "

She used to comment on it,

and Harry would whisper to me,

"Goddamn it, she's always right."

- Have you had luck so far?

- Wonderful luck.

And the most wonderful of all

was to meet you.

- Do you think so?

- Yes, I do think so.

Even if tomorrow

means the end of us...

...as it may do.

What about this one?

(Cardiff) We had this scene in the bath,

and she came on the set,

and we thought she was going to be

in a swimming costume,

which was the usual thing.

When she took off her dressing gown,

she was stark naked.

Within half an hour of doing these shots

in the bath, the place was crowded.

There was about 1 6 electricians

on the spot rail

trying to look technical,

holding lamps and things.

The ground, which was a paper floor,

was getting wetter and wetter.

And as she got out, she slipped on

the soapy water, and fell with a crash,

and the towels missed her completely,

east and west in the air,

and there was the great Marlene

floundering about on the floor,

stark naked.

(Heston) He started very early in colour.

Started about when

they started doing colour, I believe.

It's a different medium, really.

You light in a different way,

which, of course, is the cameraman.

(Cardiff) The Technicolor people

had come over

to choose one young operator

to be trained in Technicolor,

and they came out shaking

because the technical questions

were absolutely...very, very tough.

So, when it came to my turn,

I said right away,

"I'm afraid on the technical side,

I'm zero,"

and there was a shocked silence,

and they said, "How are you

going to get on in the film business? "

I study painting and light

and lighting buildings and so on,

and they asked me, "Which side

of the face did Rembrandt light? "

I took a chance and said, "This side,

and it'd be reversed in an etching,"

and then I talked about Pieter de Hooch

and his interiors

and the camera obscura and that stuff,

and the next day I learnt

that I had been chosen.

Light comes through the front,

obviously, through the lens,

and there's a prism here, which is

the soul of the Technicolor camera.

Twenty-five per cent of the light

comes straight through the prism

on to the one film in this gate here.

That's the green record.

And then the other...rest of the light,

75 per cent of the light,

comes through

and is reflected on to a bipack.

This is a bipack of the blue

and the red records.

And, of course,

the magazine holds three films.

Of course, these things free the

sprockets. They do nothing except that.

But I used to put on this big act and say,

"l think I'll put a bit more green here,

"a little less blue there,"

and they believed it, they thought

I was creating colour with the camera.

(Challis) The whole camera department

were American

and Jack was the only one

on the camera crew who was English.

And he was the camera operator

on it at Denham.

- Here they come.

- (Cheering)

Donnerhill still in rather a pocket

on Wings Of The Morning.

(Cardiff) It was a fascinating new world,

because I was into

the lmpressionists at that time,

and I was mad

about the lmpressionist painters,

and I thought, "Well, this is it."

(Voiceover) The surface of anything

you look at is absorbing some colour rays

and is reflecting the rest.

What it reflects strikes the eye and that's

how we get our impression of colour.

Colour is light and light is colour.

(Challis) He always liked to experiment.

He liked to apply certain things

which he felt he'd learnt from painting

to cinematography.

As you see, I've always collected a lot

of interesting paintings and drawings.

I learnt a lot about painting...

Well, I'm still learning, let's face it.

And the main idea is I copied

some painters, like I liked that Boucher.

I couldn't afford to buy the real one

and so I copied it,

and that's the way to learn.

A lot of real painters copy

other painters, you know,

because this way they learn from each

other, in a way, it's an interesting thing.

Some people say it's a copy.

Yes, it's a copy.

But it takes a long time to analyse

the painting, to make the copy.

Then I had a big break, because

a German came in to Technicolor,

who was a count, Count von Keller.

(Challis) He was a great traveller.

He was a sort of...I don't know,

you know, sort of buccaneer, almost.

He was a wonderful character.

Somebody suggested to him,

"When you're on these travels,

why don't you make films?

"Why don't you take along

a Technicolor camera and crew

"and make travel films? "

(Voiceover) The work and spirit of

the immortal Lawrence lives to this day,

for Lawrence,

in his quiet unobtrusive way,

imparted to the dwellers

of this wild territory

a sense of law and order

of which they had never dreamed.

(Challis) Jack is in the middle and I'm

on the right. That's in Palmyra in Syria.

(Cardiff) We went to Africa and lndia

and all over the world

with a Technicolor camera.

(Voiceover) The outside walls are richly

carved with incidents from Hindu legend,

so rich that not one panel

resembles any other.

(Challis) Most people

hadn't been abroad.

And to see places in colour

was marvellous.

(Voiceover) He is Nundi the bull.

Nundi the joyous.

Worshipped as an embodiment

of the force of reproduction.

(Challis) But Jack was

the creative drive behind them.

Nobody else had much idea

about how to set about

making it original and different.

(Cardiff) When Vesuvius was on, and

splotches of molten lava were falling,

we had to sort of choose a moment

to dash in and just point the camera.

(Voiceover)..while from the lips

of its many gaping mouths, the lava...

I broke the prism

and burnt the tripod legs.

Burnt my shoes, anyway.

But that's another story.

(Christie) "Western Approaches"

is an extraordinary film,

because it's the first ever

Technicolor documentary

that isn't a travelogue.

- What have you decided to do, sir?

- Make for lreland.

Prevailing winds in part of

the Gulf Stream should be in our favour.

(Cardiff) You had a lifeboat

with 22 merchant seamen in it

and the Technicolor camera, it was

very clumsy and very difficult to work,

and the director and myself

and a few assistants and so on.

And we went out every day in the lrish

Channel, which was absolutely horrible.

(Voiceover)

This is the "Forces Programme".

Now here's a short recital

of gramophone records.

We're on the home stretch now.

You can tell when you hear the old BBC.

It won't be long now.

(Christie) For the first time

in living memory,

British film-makers

had a British audience.

People enjoyed seeing British films.

They actually preferred them

in some cases to American films.

They felt they came closer

to the scene of the action.

How could Americans understand

what people in Britain

were going through during the war?

So towards the end of the war, I think

British film-making was really on a high.

(Cardiff) At that time,

I had not yet photographed

a feature film in its entirety.

I'd done lots of little pieces and

I'd worked mostly on the second unit,

and I was desperate

to get the big break.

- (Gunshot)

- (Clicks)

- (Gunshots)

- (Clicks)

(Schoonmaker) The main character,

played by Roger Livesey,

is trying to deal with his loneliness

by going on safaris

and shooting animals all over the world.

Jack Cardiff was doing the shooting

of that as the second unit cameraman

and my husband came in

and watched him doing it.

I heard a voice say, "Very interesting,"

and there was the great Michael Powell,

and he said, "Would you like

to photograph my next film? "

and I said, "Oh, yes, Mr Powell,"

and he went,

and I thought, "He's just said that and

he'll forget all about it," but he didn't.

Are you wounded? Repeat,

are you wounded? Are you bailing out?

- What's your name?

- June.

Yes, June, I'm bailing out.

I'm bailing out but there's a catch.

I've got no parachute.

Oh...hello? Hello, Peter?

Do not understand.

(Clock ticking)

Hello? Hello, Peter? Can you hear me?

(Schoonmaker) Michael Powell just felt

that Jack was the man at that time

who knew the most about how to get

colour on to film in a new way.

The Archers had what was described

as the longest period

of subversive film-making

within a major studio ever,

and because their films were

very popular, commercially successful,

they got away with murder.

(Michael Powell)

We were our own bosses.

We produced it,

we wrote it, we directed it,

and if anybody said to us,

"May I suggest you do this? "

we just said, "Eff off!"

(Cardiff) It was a wonderful combination,

because you had Michael,

who was daring and running around

and doing outlandish things,

and Emeric,

who was a brilliant writer anyway.

He would be the one

who occasionally would say to Michael,

"This is going too far, because of this

or that," and he'd usually be right.

(Schoonmaker) They were fantastic.

Fertile, imaginative mind.

A very unique person in his own way.

And then you add Jack to the mix,

you have a pretty powerful cocktail.

(Cardiff) It was daunting for me,

as my first film,

and even for Michael Powell

it was an ambitious project.

We were doing an exterior and Michael

said, "Wait, I'd love to have a fade-in,

"but instead of just a fade-in

"I'd like to have something different

like a mist thing or something."

And I said, "Look through the camera,"

so he looked through the camera

and I went to the lens and went...

(Scorsese) When I saw the Archers logo,

I knew I was in for something special.

Then I saw the name Cardiff

attached with that,

and I knew this was a unique...I was

about to undergo a unique experience.

- Child, where were you born?

- In Boston, sir.

I've made a bunch of films in Hollywood

but nothing to compare with this.

It was an enormous production.

The court will adjourn.

(Challis) It was, I've always thought,

as pure cinema as Disney, really.

I mean, you couldn't do it on the stage

or in any other way.

(Cardiff) I remember,

in the first preparation days of the film,

I said to him, quite casually,

I said, "Michael,

I suppose heaven will be in colour

"and the earth will be in black and white."

He said, "No, the contrary."

I said, "Why? "

He said, "Everyone expects that."

That was typical in his nature.

He was perverse to the extent

that he would like to do

anything that was different.

I mean, the ordinary

was anathema to him.

A little trick of mine, you remember?

In order to get the transition

from black and white to colour,

we would shoot the main sequence

in black and white

but the penultimate shot

was using the Technicolor camera

so that they would be able to start

in black and white

and then bring in the colour.

(Hunter) Marius Goring ad-libbed

a line during one of the scenes

and Mickey Powell immediately said,

"Keep it in, good line."

One is starved for Technicolor up there.

(Hunter) Really throughout

all of my life, I do not go to dailies,

except that when we were doing

"A Matter Of Life And Death",

I was so curious that I did go, early on,

I think for the first time

that they had colour in the dailies,

they clearly were not happy

with the colour.

They said, "Send it back,"

and, "Do better than that,

"we must have it better than that!"

So I have a feeling that Jack

was very much behind all that.

(Voiceover) Outside the Empire,

thousands crowd the approaches

to see the royal family and also

the many film stars and notabilities

attending the Royal Command

film performance.

Michael Powell, one of the two

producers of the film, on the stairway.

(Cardiff) At the end of the picture,

either the cameramen

would collect these, put on one sheet,

or Technicolor would do it for him.

I have several,

and they're great fun to look at them.

(Voiceover) Mopu is 8,000 feet up.

The peaks on the range opposite

are nearly as high as Everest.

The people call the highest peak

Nanga Devi. It means the bare goddess.

(Cardiff) On "Black Narcissus", we all

expected to go on location to lndia,

and we were greatly surprised when

Michael Powell the director told us

the entire film was going to be made

at Pinewood Studios in England.

(Powell) I saw it as a wonderful

exercise for all...for all of us,

to produce a real perfect

colour work of art.

(Cardiff) Michael collected around him

the best technicians that were available

and he had a brilliant art director,

Alfred Junge.

He was very German

and highly organised,

and if he designed a set,

when you walked on for the first time,

there would be a cross on the floor,

and he said, "That is the camera

position with a 35 millimetre lens."

(Powell) Alfred Junge the designer

and Jack Cardiff the cameraman

would have endless arguments

and conversations about settings,

first of all on paper

and then when they were painted,

then in detail,

and then when the set was there.

(Challis) The exteriors out on the lot

at Pinewood, with the Himalayas,

were absolutely marvellous,

because they were plaster mountains

in perspective,

but the result was just unbelievable.

You looked out of the window

and it looked real.

(Powell) Sometimes Alfred

would have to tear half of it down

and Jack pointed out that

the kind of lighting that he wanted

for this particular sequence

couldn't be done because

there was a wall in the way.

Alfred would be furious.

But together they just worked miracles.

I mean, you never get

the slightest feeling of studio, do you?

(Cardiff) After the film was released,

I believe Micky got a letter

from someone in lndia

who said that they knew the locations,

they'd seen them.

It was a good, good idea!

(Cardiff) Vermeer was the sort of painter

that I had in mind on "Black Narcissus"

because the light had to be clear

and as simple as possible.

(Bell ringing)

(Cardiff) When I did this green,

having green filters in the filler light

and sort of pinkish colours

in the sun effects,

it was a thing of anger,

I tried to use

the same kind of mood in that...

I mean, any cameraman

would get ideas from Van Gogh

and moods of light and things.

Light is the principal agent,

and that should be the same

with photography,

that the use of light is like a painter,

that you use it in a simple form.

(Scorsese) The emotional

and psychological connection

that was made through

certain lighting in paintings,

I felt, watching those pictures

that he photographed.

He made them special.

Because of that, you wanted to be

in that world with them.

You can't order me about. You have

nothing to do with me any more.

I know what you've done.

I know that you've left the order.

I only want to stop you from

doing something you'll be sorry for.

Sister Philippa is going back in a few

days' time. I want to send you with her.

That's what you would like to do,

send me back and shut me up.

(Schoonmaker) Michael Powell

felt colour was part of the narrative.

Sister Clodagh, Sister Clodagh!

- You know what she says about you?

- Whatever she said, it was true!

- You say that because you love her!

- I don't love anyone!

(Sister Ruth) Clodagh. Clodagh.

Clodagh! Clodagh!

- Clodagh! Clodagh!

- (Crash)

When I saw their work on screen,

this was like being bathed in colour.

It was palpable. It was...it...

I don't know what...

The colour itself became

the emotion of the picture.

The atmosphere that was

created around me was fantastic.

I was most inspired by it.

I mean, I thought I was just going out

looking a bit malevolent.

But when I saw it on the screen, I was

amazed at this great blare of music

and this incredible face with the wet hair.

He gave me half of my performance

with the lighting.

(Michael Powell) When Arthur Rank...

he took it to California,

showed it in Hollywood,

it got the most wonderful

technical praise.

The art direction got two Oscars.

Jack Cardiff's photography

got another Oscar.

(Scorsese) The whole communication

of the film, what it tries to communicate,

is combined through costume,

the positioning of people in the frame,

the movement of people

within the frame,

sometimes the movement

of the frame itself, light, shadow, colour,

and cutting, all to music.

All designed specifically to music.

Then they took it and went further

with it with "The Red Shoes" ballet.

The last day but one

of "Black Narcissus",

Michael Powell said to me,

"What do you think about ballet? "

I said, "Not much, all these sissies

prancing about, I don't think much of it."

And he was amused

rather than horrified.

He said, "Jack, you'd better get to like

ballet, because this is your next film.

"I've got tickets for you to go practically

every night." I thought, "Oh, my God!"

Very shortly, of course, I became

absolutely wrapped up in ballet

and I loved it.

Actually, Miss Page,

I want more, much more.

I want to create, to make something big

out of something little.

(Schoonmaker) The theme

of "The Red Shoes", of course, is that...

Michael was saying that if you want to

be on the cutting edge of your art form,

you have to be prepared

to pay the consequences,

because you're challenging everybody

when you start breaking conventions,

and you have to be aware that

some people may be able to attack you

and bring you down when you do this.

Why do you want to dance?

Why do you want to live?

I don't know exactly why, but I must.

That's my answer too.

Some ballet enthusiasts feel

that it's not the best shooting of ballet.

The best shooting of ballet, to be literal

about it, would be from head to toe,

Fred Astaire had in his contract

that you had to keep photographing him

from head to toe.

But they changed that completely.

They paid no attention to that.

They made a film about what goes on

inside the dancer's head.

It's how the dancer, he or she,

sees themselves, while they're dancing.

So you get the spirit of the dance,

you get the spirit of it,

and I applied that later

to the boxing scenes in "Raging Bull".

What they hear, what they see.

What they hear and what they see,

very important.

(Cardiff) Michael Powell had courage.

He would risk, he would take a risk,

a big chance to do something,

which might seem crazy

but it usually came off.

(Schoonmaker) The camera devices

are welded to the material.

They're welded

to the emotion of the film.

They are for the purpose

of impacting the audience.

I think because Jack had vision,

you know,

about what he was going to do,

he didn't feel curbed

by the restrictions of that time.

I had the idea of increasing

the speed of the camera very rapidly,

that as he jumped,

I went from 24 frames to 48 frames

for about less than a second.

So it went up, and as it got up

it was going much faster,

which slowed him down imperceptibly,

and he seemed to linger in the air

on the top of the jump.

(Music plays)

(Schoonmaker) They were coming up

with great ways to use the camera,

and when you see how big that thing

was, how they did it, I don't know.

I mean, they did call it the "enchanted

cottage", cos it was so huge.

How they moved that thing around,

I don't know. It was amazing.

- Can you imagine?

- Things have changed.

It was enormous, and you didn't have

much room to get the lights round it.

(Challis) That's the famous

Technicolor camera. Jack, me.

The camera flying in and out as though

from the point of view of a dancer.

Would be a hand-held shot these days,

but the camera is on a sort of bungee

slung from a chain in the roof.

(Scorsese) You begin to see, I must

say, flourishes, where the camera cut,

or a piece of composition

for the length of the shot,

that you begin to realise that

he's using the lens like brush strokes.

It becomes like moving paintings.

You know, it's a painting he's made.

Along with Hein Heckroth, Michael and

Emeric Pressburger, there's no doubt.

But it's a painting, paintings that moved,

extraordinarily moved,

not only moved visually but emotionally

and psychologically also.

There was something so audacious

about "Red Shoes",

and something that was so utterly, um...

unique, different from any film

being made at the time.

(Woman speaking French)

Qu'est-ce que tu as?

Mon petit.

Et ou vas-tu?

Mon petit!

No!

The lessons of those films have never

left me. I still keep drawing upon them.

It's had a huge influence. Particularly

on Scorsese and Brian de Palma.

De Palma. De Palma, easily.

The expressionism.

It's about expressing colour,

it's expressing, you know, the glint

of a knife and the colour of the blood.

It's all there with Brian.

Look at "Scarface".

And Lucas and Coppola.

And then of course you have

Francis all the time. "Godfather".

Clearly in "One From The Heart".

It's about passion, I think.

You could feel these people were

really, really dedicated and involved.

(Cardiff) When it was cut,

it was shown to Mr Rank.

Usually if a film isn't very good,

you know,

they might sort of put on a little bit

of an act, and say, "Most interesting,"

and, you know, and say, "Well done,"

or something and walk out.

But on this occasion

they walked out, they got up,

and they walked out without

saying a word to Michael Powell.

They just ignored him,

just walked straight out,

because they were convinced

that it was a disastrous film.

J Arthur Rank thought they'd gone mad

and said, "This is terrible, we have

to stop this kind of film-making.

"From now on, we will tell them what to

make", and Michael said, "You won't."

It was a very sad end

to a great, great period of film-making.

(Alan Parker) I mean,

they're seminal films, you know,

but they're a particular aesthetic.

It's the kind of aesthetic

that actually will be great art.

- And then it will be kitsch...

- Yes.

...and then it'll be art again.

I've signed all over England

and America too,

and I just lost count.

- I'll put happy birthday.

- Yeah, that would be very good.

I'm outside the studio gates once,

I'd just come back from seeing

Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier,

and as they came through the gates

they're all screaming.

I went by and they said, "Who's that? "

and somebody said, "He's just nobody."

- So how did you feel?

- Well, just like a nobody.

(Christie) After working

with Powell and Pressburger,

Jack had a remarkable career,

because in quite a short space of time,

in less than ten years,

he worked with many of

the greatest film-makers in the world.

It's a real roll call

that starts with Hitchcock.

(George Turner)

Hitchcock had just made "Rope",

and it was 80 minutes,

it was supposedly one take.

A lot of eight-minute

and nine-minute takes put together

so that the picture

appeared to be in actual time.

(Cardiff) I think Hitch

was in love with this idea,

because he felt

a certain technical satisfaction.

Ingrid Bergman,

she is alleged to have said,

"You care more about the technicalities

than you do about the acting."

(Cardiff) He put everything

in the preparation of the picture.

He rarely looked through the camera,

because he knew what it was getting.

He'd say to me, "Jack,

you've got the 35 lens on? " "Yes."

"You're getting the hands in the picture? "

He knew what he was getting.

(Handford)

It was the first crane of its kind

that ran entirely independent of tracks.

(Cardiff) The camera started

in the front of the house,

through the kitchen

and then into the drawing room.

Talk, talk, talk, and went into the hall.

(Handford) Parts of the set

would have to slide open

to allow the camera crane

to go through them.

We'd pan round to where

the walls had been closed.

(Cardiff) I had to light six or eight sets,

more. Dozens of different positions.

Round and round. Back to the hall.

All in one shot

without the camera stopping.

I had electricians holding lamps, and

dodging under a table and coming up.

On one occasion we had a shot

where we had to go upstairs,

through the door,

and as we approached her bed,

we went into a big close-up

when instead of going up,

looking down on the bed like that,

which was a cumbersome thing to do,

we approached her straight

and the bed was on electronic things,

and as you tracked in,

the bed would come up like this,

so that you'd have a big close-up

without the camera going too high.

(Handford) It ended up

by not being ten-minute takes.

There were some very long takes

but it became impractical to do.

(Cardiff) It couldn't possibly be

wonderful photography

because everything was a compromise.

But it was really my greatest

achievement, in a funny way,

because it was doing the impossible.

I'm just going outside.

I may be away some time.

(Wind howls)

It was probably one of the most

marvellous pictures I've ever been on,

and I had the luck of having

a fantastic cameraman.

(Scorsese) There was something

very special and unique

about the English use of Technicolor,

particularly by a man like Cardiff.

That became something else, and had

a lot to do with emotion, and painting.

Not to say that the American

cinematographers didn't use painting.

They were brilliant.

But how should I put it?

That was a different type of commodity.

(Christie) Jack joined Hollywood

at the point at which it really began

to march out into the world.

(Christie) I think that was a very exciting

moment for a cinematographer,

to be working

with those Hollywood film-makers.

He worked with Henry Hathaway.

(Cardiff) He was a toughie.

On "The Black Rose",

he fired so many people

that we had a plane

called the Hathaway Special

which flew people, every couple of days,

that had been fired, back to England.

He would devote his life to that picture.

He would die for that picture, you know.

And he expected everyone else

to die for the picture.

And if they were not ready to die,

he would just crucify them.

(Screams and war cries)

I never saw anyone look less like young

gallants going off on a great adventure.

(Cardiff)

He said he'd play Genghis Khan

on condition that his coat

was lined inside with mink.

They said, "But, Orson, we don't see

the mink coat, and it's expensive."

Orson said, "I've got to do it that way."

So, OK, they got the mink

and they put it in.

You never saw it inside, the lining inside.

Of course, at the end of the film,

when his part was finished,

he slipped off with the coat

and went off to do

some more scenes on "Othello"

and turned the coat inside out so that

he had the mink coat for "Othello".

What are you stewin' about,

mon capitaine?

Bonnard told you

where we were going last night.

- Where?

- The Sahara Desert.

Straight ahead and turn to your left.

(Cardiff) On the first day of shooting,

when John Wayne...

He played the part

of a Foreign Legionnaire.

He came on the set and he had...

he had a cowboy hat on,

and the holster and the boots

and the gun, just like a cowboy.

And I said to Hathaway, "Henry,

why is he wearing that cowboy outfit? "

Hathaway looked at me

like I was an idiot

and he said,

"He always wears the cowboy outfit."

He was always doing the

withdrawing-the-gun business, you know,

and flicking it round

and flicking it back again.

I did a lot of shots of him doing that.

Someone gave Sophia one of

these things you blow and it comes out,

and she loved that.

Hathaway was a wonderful director,

but he was a man who,

in a sense, bulldozed his way along.

(Cardiff) He had got far worse

on that picture,

because we had this desert,

which had to be virgin desert, you know,

no sign of a footprint or anything.

And you can imagine a film unit

walking about. He was going crazy.

The English crew were having

a cup of tea in this so-called place,

and he'd put up a notice on the board

because he hated the whole idea

of the English unit having tea.

He said, "ln future," on the notice board,

"the English crew

will drink their tea standing up."

And he said, "Come on, Jack,

let's find these locations."

I said, "Henry, you've blown it.

You've made a terrible mistake."

He said, "What the hell are you

talking about? " and I said, "Well...

"at the moment

the English crew respect you.

"They don't particularly like you

but they respect you.

"But now you've done that, English tea,

forget it, you're a villain from now on."

He said, "Oh, you're full of shit,"

and he just thought for a moment,

then he turned the car round

and drove back,

and he tore the notice board

off the screen.

I've got something for you too, and it's

my heart, black as it is, but all of it.

The assistant director had come

on the set and said, "Flynn's arrived.

"He's gone straight to the bar

and he's drinking double whiskies

"followed by beer chasers."

So when I got to the bar

and I was introduced to him...

He was never really drunk. He was

always slightly sort of pleasantly drunk.

Errol fell ill

halfway through "Crossed Swords",

and he collapsed

and was taken to hospital,

and the doctor said,

"Well, I'm afraid we think he's dying.

"His liver doesn't exist any more.

He has no liver."

And the producer said, "You don't

understand. We're making a movie."

We carried on shooting with a double.

We did mostly Gina's stuff.

And in something like three

or four weeks, he came on the set,

and he did look pretty awful

but he had survived.

The doctor said, "Well, it's a miracle,

"but, of course, he must never

touch a drop of drink again."

And he came on the set

with a glass of that much neat vodka,

and as usual...carried on as usual.

You have been studying my style,

monsieur!

One has to understand

at that time films were still enter...

I was going to say

films were still entertainment.

No, today they're entertainment too.

But at that time they were coming out

of the old Hollywood system.

There were Westerns,

they were genre films,

and Technicolor was used

for heightening the genre.

In the '40s and '50s, colour was still

relegated to films as a special element,

rather than what happened

in the late '60s and the early '70s

where all films became colour.

Jack was suggested

by the producer of the picture,

who also happened to be the star.

That's Kirk Douglas.

(Kirk Douglas)

The shooting was very difficult.

It seemed to be raining all the time.

And once, in exasperation,

I asked one of the young

Norwegian kids,

"Hey, does it rain all the time here? "

He said, "l don't know.

I'm only 1 8 years old."

(Cardiff) I suggested to Dick,

"Why don't we shoot in the rain?

"Because these Vikings

are tough guys, you know,

"and they would be out in all weathers."

Dick agreed

and Kirk Douglas was overjoyed,

because it means that we could shoot,

wouldn't lose so much money.

But as people know in the film business,

ordinary rain doesn't photograph.

So we had to supplement it

with hoses coming down.

The local villagers thought

we were out of our minds.

It was already raining and

we were adding rain to it.

But it worked very well.

Kirk Douglas,

he liked doing his own stunts.

In fact, he was a very good...

He had a good sense of timing and all

the things that are good in a stunt man.

- He does the shot walking on the oars.

- That's right.

He fell in once or twice

but he soon got the hang of it.

But that was considered a must,

that he had to fall off,

cos he was too perfect, in fact.

When he climbs up the wall of

the castle, after having thrown the axe,

he climbed himself.

(Fleischer) With Jack's ingenuity,

we were able to do

some pretty remarkable shots.

And looking at the film now, I'm really

astounded at how well they turned out,

knowing how they were made,

which is really with spit and cardboard

and some rubber bands,

and it worked great.

Jack and I were very worried,

how are we gonna make this scene,

where you have all the Viking ships

going into a fog bank and disappearing.

And it's essential to the story

that you have that scene.

And Jack solved the problem with us.

He said, "lf we could just get

a patch of fog,

"where the ships go

into the patch of fog,

"that's all I really need,

and I'll make up the rest of the fog,

"I'll make my own filter,

"and paint it, a white filter,

"which we'll just put up in front

of the camera and leave a square,

"where the real fog is."

And that's what we did.

And it's absolutely convincing.

It's a fantastic shot.

Every time I see it, I get a chill,

knowing how it was made,

but also the beauty of the shot.

Jack, certainly, looking at his work,

and having worked with him,

is probably the greatest

colour photographer that ever lived.

(Cardiff) Turner, well, I mean,

he was the perfect cameraman.

If he'd been alive today,

he would have been probably

the best cameraman in the world.

I mean the way that he got dramatic

emphasis by over-lighting things

which takes courage,

with a cameraman, anyway,

but he had plenty of courage,

you can see that.

I mean, that church is burnt out

but it's so dramatic.

I wouldn't start to dare to compare

myself to what Turner did,

but I learnt a lot of lessons from Turner.

You should go out and do something

that's different and bold,

and that's the whole essence

of photography, in a sense.

We wanted an extreme long shot,

with a wide-angle lens,

of the duel in the snow,

and these two guys

facing each other, long shot.

But, of course, long shot,

we saw the spot rails,

so I had this idea of putting a piece

of glass in front of the camera,

about six feet away.

I painted the glass,

in other words, the same colour.

Then behind my shoulder I put

a little lamp that shone into the glass

Iike a reflection of the sun.

But the first attempt I made,

I was using the sprayer,

and I overdid it, and the paint

was running down the glass,

and Dino de Laurentiis the producer

came on the set and said,

"Cardiff, what do you do?

Wasting time! What do you do? "

I said, "I'm painting the glass,"

and he said...

He was furious and walked off the stage.

But later, it was a very effective shot

and he was showing it to everybody.

(Voiceover) Of all the love stories

France has given to the world,

this is the one to live in your memory.

(Cardiff) I had a call from New York

from Josh Logan.

He said, "Jack, I want

you to photograph 'Fanny'."'

I loved the film.

It was great fun working with

Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron.

(Turner) One of the most

beautifully photographed pictures

of this whole canon

would be "Pandora

And The Flying Dutchman"...

When do you want to marry me, Steve?

...which was produced

and directed by Albert Lewin,

who'd had a big success

with "The Picture Of Dorian Gray".

(Scorsese) "Pandora And The Flying

Dutchman" was a unique film.

It had fantasy and exotic locations.

I am predisposed to that,

mainly because of where I come from.

Neo-realism I had right around me.

If I wanted to go to a movie, I wanted

to see something more fantastical.

(James Mason) With one bloody blow,

I killed all that I loved on God's earth.

(Music drowns speech)

(Scorsese) It was so romantic,

you know, it was so romantic.

It took you to another world.

There was something

about the way it looked

which put in my mind

Powell and Pressburger.

Faith is a lie

and God himself is chaos!

Silence!

It had the magical quality of Ava

Gardner as almost a mystical figure,

a mystical sexuality.

Hello?

(Cardiff) She said, "Jack, I'm pleased

you're gonna photograph me,

"but you have to watch when I have my

periods, because I don't look so good."'

I said, "I'll look after that."'

That was the first thing she said to me.

Al Lewin used to do take after take, not

that he really wanted to do another take,

but he just wanted to keep going

so he could gaze into Ava's face.

And in a way that's true.

I've changed so since I've known you.

(Cardiff) He said, "l want you to go

to Wallace Heaton's in Bond Street

"and buy yourself a 1 6mm camera."'

Which I have here, and it's just about

the cheapest one you can get.

(Whirring)

And I took it out to Africa

on "African Queen".

Well, I've taken it on many films.

A little to starboard, Miss!

No, no, the other way!

(Cardiff) John Huston had the idea

of doing the whole thing in Africa,

and he said

it was going to be so easy.

Huston went out there and said he didn't

like that location, it was too pretty.

He disappeared for a couple of weeks

and we wondered what had happened,

whether he'd been eaten by crocodiles,

but he then sent a telegram

saying he'd found the perfect place

in the Belgian Congo.

It was right in nowhere land.

It was called Biondo, this place,

and it was beyond anywhere.

It was two days' Jeep ride

from Stanleyville.

He was not always thrilled

with the choice of locations

because if there was

an impossible location to be found,

John Huston was the man to find it.

I was there for the whole shoot,

and I think Jack had

tremendous admiration for John.

John always tried to get

almost impossible shots,

really difficult ones,

and Jack always got what he wanted.

(Kevin McClory)

Huston was quite easy-going, in a way.

But ever, beneath the casual

kind of attitude, was the artist,

was the perfectionist.

He had the utmost regard for Jack,

that I know,

because they basically

talked the same language.

(Cardiff) We were towing this raft,

and we had Katherine Hepburn's

little place as a dressing room.

I had a tiny generator for my two lamps.

I only had two lamps on the picture.

And one or two others,

the sound department, had it.

So it was a string of little boats

being towed along.

Of course, when we came to a corner,

they were like a row of sausages,

and they couldn't turn

so we would crash into the bank.

(McClory) You could find yourself

with one leg, on "The African Queen",

on the boat with Katie and Bogie

sitting down there,

and your other leg up

on the bank of a river,

holding a boom like that over them

and liable to go in,

and in those rivers

were rather nasty creatures.

(Cardiff) In Uganda on Lake Victoria,

we were all sick, very, very sick.

I mean all kinds of dysentery,

all kinds of vomiting, everything.

(Bacall) Sam Spiegel, our friend

and our producer, came to the location.

He was furious cos the movie

had to shut down for three days.

We got yet another doctor to look at it

and he found exactly what was wrong,

that the filter, the water filter...

We were on a houseboat,

you see, and the filter wasn't there.

So we were drinking just river water with

the droppings of hippos and crocodiles.

And the only two persons who weren't

sick was Bogie and John Huston

because they never touched water,

they only drank whisky.

- I could give you a hand.

- Close your eyes, please, Mr Allnut.

I'm all right. I'm all right.

(Cardiff) Hepburn was an incredible lady.

She was very strong-minded,

and in some ways she didn't want

to be regarded as a frail woman.

She wanted to be tough and accepted

as a woman of character and courage.

She did go in the jungle

and she was a very, very brave woman.

Ain't no person in their right mind

ain't scared of white water.

I never dreamed that any mere physical

experience could be so stimulating.

How's that, Miss?

(Cardiff) Bogie, of course, put on

this big act that he was a tough guy.

I mean, he told me at the beginning

about makeup.

He said, "Jack, see this face?

"It's taken me many years to get

all these lines and crinkles in it.

"That's the way I want it. Don't light me

up and make me look like a goddam fag.

"l want to look like this."' So I did it.

(Bacall) Bogie was not an actor who

cared much about the way he looked.

But he appreciated good photography.

And he loved effective photography

that worked for the story.

(Bogart's character) I wrote and directed

ll three of the movies Maria was in,

her short, full career

from start to finish.

(Scorsese) It was a frightening film

for a young person to see.

I'll never forget the opening scenes

in the graveyard in the rain.

And his colour, his use of colour,

particularly when they're in Monte Carlo

or on the yacht.

She unveils, in a sense, and Edmond

O'Brien, all the guys, just look at her.

It's an extraordinary picture.

(Voiceover) The world's number-one

symbol of desirability

on display all over the world's

number-one showroom

with the world's number-one

customers wanting to buy,

and nobody wrapped her up

and took her home.

(Cardiff) Oh, she was gorgeous,

of course. She was so good-looking.

I was on location

with that one as well, and that...

Yeah, but I think that Ava Gardner

was certainly not hard to photograph.

I mean, Bogie may have been,

but Ava was such a great beauty.

(Cardiff) The first time I met her,

she was very happy with Frank Sinatra.

The next time I worked with her,

she was leaving Frank.

Something had gone wrong

and she was taking Soneryl to sleep

and that made her a bit sleepy,

the eyes had to be looked after,

so I was lighting her more carefully.

And it is a fact, they rely

on the cameramen very much.

I think I am pretty enough, but I would

not want to be that kind of star.

Pretty enough? Any woman that

can use the moon for a key light...

Key light? What is that?

That's your light

when the stage is all lit up,

the light that shines only on you.

You took a lot ofiportraits ofiactresses,

didn'tyou, over the years?

- Yes, I had...

- Could we have a look at those?

I used to take them

usually in the lunch hour.

And, um...I only had time to do a few.

Audrey Hepburn was one

I did on "War And Peace".

That's a typical type of lighting,

of light, dark, light, dark, you see.

Dark, light, dark, light.

- What's the name ofithat again?

- Chiaroscuro.

Pierre.

(Cardiff) I tried to photograph them

as many times as possible

to get used to their face and study

any kind of flaws and things.

Janet Leigh? That was on "The Vikings".

And then we have Anita Ekberg,

who had a lovely face.

And that was on "War And Peace".

They all had different qualities. I mean,

Loren had the most gorgeous eyes.

Very expressive eyes.

Audrey Hepburn had these

very thick eyebrows, which was...

She made a fashion out of that, and

she made a fashion out of many things.

That's Sophia Loren,

with a big hat.

This is when I became like an amateur

enthusiast who takes pictures.

Why does he take them?

He likes to take pictures, you know.

And these women

were beautiful women.

And, you know, like you collect stamps,

I collected beautiful women,

photographically, of course.

Marilyn was always

sort of perfectly made up

and she had a face

which was virtually perfect.

She had a slightly tipped-up nose,

which was very attractive.

She specifiically asked

fioryou once. What was that?

Well, that was because I was in vogue.

It's almost like footballers

that are getting around.

They want a certain footballer

to be in a certain position

and they find out that

that's the best man, they get them.

I don't know. And she asked for me,

and I was very flattered.

You have pretty eyebrows.

Love. What a universe of joy and pain

lies in that little word.

Larry was...he was supposed

to be in that position.

But he wanted to look through

the camera to see what the shot was.

- He was directing.

- He wanted to see what the shot was.

So I took his position and Marilyn

put her arms round me like that,

and later on she wrote,

"Jack, I'll tell you what we'll do,"

and Arthur Miller, the husband, said,

"Oh, no, you don't," so that was that.

- What were you gonna do?

- I don't know.

It was a tough job for him

because she was...

I think she was a darling girl

in many instances,

but she...she had a lot of problems...

- Do you reverse?

- Just try me!

She would come on the set very late,

and it was a tough picture to do.

(Voiceover) Between Marilyn and Olivier,

who also directed,

there were occasional reports of strain.

(Cardiff) We had a wonderful

make-up man, Whitey,

who was with her for years.

When she died, there was

an urgent call to New York,

for he was in New York at the time,

and he had to fly back,

because it was in the contract he had

to make her up when she was dead.

The idea of making up this gorgeous

creature when she was dead,

and putting on the lipstick and

the usual thing, it was a tough break.

He told me he had to have a couple

of stiff drinks before he started.

Some weeks ago,

I had a celebration party,

celebrating my 80 years in the cinema.

No matter how good the cameraman is,

or thinks he is,

he's got to serve the director,

that's absolutely important.

The director has to be the one who

has the responsibility for the final film.

(Speaks French)

(Fleischer) It became apparent

when we were doing "The Vikings"

that Jack really was

very interested in the actors

and in the direction of the picture.

Jack had every potential

of being an excellent director,

and we discussed that,

and as a matter of fact, I let him direct

one short scene in "The Vikings",

just to see how he handled it,

and how he felt directing a film.

(Cardiff) I worked

on a couple of B pictures,

and the first one,

the critics said, in effect,

why on earth did I want

to be a mediocre director

when I'd been on top as a cameraman.

And they suggested that I went back

to photography as soon as I could.

Anyway, soon after that I got

the big break on "Sons & Lovers".

(Rumbling)

What is it?

It's the mine.

I thought "Sons & Lovers"

did a marvellous job.

Some of them don't make the transition

very well, do they? But he did.

(Voiceover) Local people, many of them

from mining families, became actors,

to help recreate a mining disaster.

Jack Cardiff was the director.

(Yates) I do think that cinematographers

are inclined to be suspected

of concentrating

on the look of the picture,

which I don't think Jack did,

and I think that he was very clever

to want to work with Freddie Francis,

who was a very established

cameraman at that time.

I'd just done a film for Jack Clayton,

called "Room At The Top",

and I guess Jack liked the look of that

and decided he'd like me to do his film.

Either that, or he thought I was cheap.

I can't remember.

(Cardiff) I would never go to Freddie

and say, "ls the back light a bit hot? "

Whatever. I would never say anything.

(Christie) It's a beautifully lit and

beautifully directed black-and-white film.

It's one of the classics

of British black-and-white

cinematography of the postwar period.

Forgive me.

Forgive you? I love you.

I always thought, being a southerner,

I always thought that going up north,

it was dreary and dark like that,

so I was quite happy

to shoot it that way.

(Voiceover) Action,

and the local actors jump to it,

producing a scene which will be

one of the highlights of the film.

You fioundyourselfi

nominatedfiorbest direction

at the American Academy A wards,

alongside Alfired Hitchcock.

who'd done "Psycho "that year.

- I 'd worked with him, as you know.

- And he'd seen "Sons & Lovers ".

He said, "I've seen 'Sons & Lovers'."'

He said, "lt was bloody good."'

He looked at me as much to say,

"How could you make such a good film? "

Because to him, I was a cameraman,

you know.

Mother! We're here!

- Hey!

- Come on, Paul!

- Go on.

- Quickly, quickly.

They'll be waiting to see us.

(Cardiff) It had a tremendous reception

and I felt this was really something,

that the lights were coming on

and everyone was applauding.

And Buddy Adler, who was the chief of

20th Century Fox, whispered in my ear,

"Jack, you must enjoy every moment of

this. It may never happen to you again."'

In fact it never happened

quite as good as that.

Didyou see "Sons & Lovers"?

Of course. That's a beautiful film.

I have a print of it, a Scope print of it.

And I liked...I liked "Sons & Lovers".

"Young Cassidy" I like a great deal.

I have a print of that also.

(Shouting)

(Horse whinnying)

- We'll win freedom yet, you bastards!

- Shut up and get back!

2 take 3.

Was it hardfioryou to go back to

cinematography after "Sons & Lovers "?

Not really. I've always loved

photography anyway.

And that was the time after that,

some years after that, that...

I made about a dozen films in all,

and then the film business in England,

as you know, more or less collapsed.

There was no work at all.

(Fleisher) I think it was...must have been

a very wrenching, angst-ridden decision,

and I really felt for him

when he had to do it, in one way.

In the other way, I was happy

because I grabbed him immediately

to be the cinematographer

on the next picture that I made.

Your Majesty,

I'm not the Prince of Wales.

(Laughing)

There are good cameramen

and fast cameramen.

There are very few good and fast,

and Jack was one of them.

That one's "The Red Shoes"

andthat's "Rambo",

and I think mostpeople

are very surprised

that a CV could incorporate

"The Red Shoes "in the late '40s

and "Rambo "in the '80s.

I had fun on the " Rambo" picture.

(Groaning)

(Coughs)

I see you are not a stranger to pain.

Perhaps you have been among

my Vietnamese comrades before.

(Cardiff)

A totally different ball game then,

because, with Sylvester Stallone,

he was very masculine, very tough,

and the film that I made with him

was a toughie.

I couldn't try any beautiful composition

or anything. Everything was tough.

But it was successful.

Hurgh!

(Fleischer) Jack was the same

dedicated, brilliant creator

that he always was.

He didn't change in all that time,

and he put

the same amount of enthusiasm

and extreme professionalism

into the last film he made

as he did in the very first.

The only other cameraman I worked with

who was that fast and that good

is Sven Nykvist.

Sven is lightning-fast and so is Jack.

He had this box of filters

and he always carried it with him.

We were up in North Mexico,

in the desert,

and the sky was really bad, it was like

all grey, and there was nothing there,

so he pulled out a little thing and started

painting, and he put it in the camera,

and all of a sudden instead of being a

grey sky, he made it magical, you know?

He's just a genius.

(Music playing)

(Cardiff)

Today there's a big difference.

The days when I was working

on "Red Shoes", with all these effects,

and any film which had a lot of effects,

I wanted very much to do it myself,

even if it meant, like I said before,

breathing on a lens to have a fade-in

through mist or whatever.

But nowadays anything that comes up,

like a shot, is going to be made,

which is really fantastic,

they say, "Jack, don't worry about that,

special effects will do that."'

So I've always felt a bit left...

Ieft in the lurch.

Digital imagery looks real,

but it lacks an authenticity,

it lacks the used feeling in a way, it

lacks the feeling that you're really there.

(Voiceover) Andthen the attack.

(Scorsese) But what I'm saying now

won't matter at all,

because, er...it's already gone,

it's all finished.

(Voiceover) Today this scene

you see being fiilmed

has been processed in Technicolor.

(Fleischer) And cinematography

is definitely an art form,

and it is, I think,

the main art of the 20th century.

There's no question that it is,

because it involves every element of art

plus one, which is movement.

(Scorsese) I would like to think

it's an art form,

but there's always the stigma of cinema

because it's populist,

but those who are, you know,

wonderful literary figures,

critics et cetera, intellectuals,

will feel that cinema is a popular form,

therefore it's not really art.

When I see him,

I see the young eyes of a child peering.

It reminds me of the eyes

of Chagall the painter,

very inquisitive.

(Scorsese) How do you get...almost

like a spiritual image in your mind

and try to make that concrete?

An idea that hits you here,

an image that hits you here,

and then you have to translate it

through this piece of equipment.

(Cardiff) Some people, in an effort to be

kind and complimentary, say, "Ah, Jack,

"they don't make films

like those old Technicolor films."'

But that's all nonsense.

To me, the standard of photography

has improved, you know, enormously.

Go on, keep going, keep going.

OK, quiet, please, everyone.

See what I'm going for?

- Why don'tyou want to retire?

- No...I think I'd hate the idea.

I've got a big horizon.

There's painting in between,

which is nice to do.

And hopefully, one of these days,

I'll just drop dead on the film set.

(Audience applauding)

(Hoffman) This is the first time

an honorary Oscar has been given

to a cinematographer.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is

my special privilege to present to you

Mr Jack Cardiff.

(Orchestral intro)

Thank you.