Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff Page #3

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I saw it as a wonderful

exercise for all...for all of us,

to produce a real perfect

colour work of art.

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."

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.

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.

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?

After the film was released,

I believe Micky got a letter

from someone in India

who said that they knew the locations,

they'd seen them.

It was a good, good idea!

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.

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.

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.

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!

Clodagh. Clodagh.

Clodagh! Clodagh!

Clodagh! Clodagh!

When I saw their work on screen,

this was like being bathed in colour.

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

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