Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff Page #5

It's a real roll call

that starts with Hitchcock.

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.

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."

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.

It was the first crane of its kind

that ran entirely independent of tracks.

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.

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.

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.

It ended up

by not being ten-minute takes.

There were some very long takes

but it became impractical to do.

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.

It was probably one of the most

marvellous pictures I've ever been on,

...and I had the luck of having

a fantastic cameraman.

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.

Jack joined Hollywood

at the point at which it really began

to march out into the world.

I think that was a very exciting

moment for a cinematographer,

to be working

with those Hollywood film-makers.

He worked with Henry Hathaway.

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.

I never saw anyone look less like young

gallants going off on a great adventure.

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.

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.

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, "In 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 sh*t,"

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

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