Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff Page #8

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.

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.

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".

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.

Local people, many of them

from mining families, became actors,

to help recreate a mining disaster.

Jack Cardiff was the director.

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.

I would never go to Freddie

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

Whatever. I would never say anything.

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.

Action,

and the local actors jump to it,

producing a scene which will be

one of the highlights of the film.

You found yourself

nominated for best direction

at the American Academy Awards,

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, "It 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.

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

"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.

- We'll win freedom yet, you bastards!

- Shut up and get back!

Was it hard for you 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.

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.

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"

and that's "Rambo",

and I think most people

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.

I see you are not a stranger to pain.

Perhaps you have been among

my Vietnamese comrades before.

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!

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.

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...

left 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.

And then the attack.

But what I'm saying now

won't matter at all,

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

it's all finished.

Today this scene

you see being filmed

has been processed in Technicolor.

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.

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