The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff, Cameraman [DVD]

This is a superb documentary about Jack who was a pioneer of Technicolor film making. Jack's films are amongst the very best - The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death and many more. He comes across as modest, hugely well connected and a true gent of the old school. The interviews with people who knew him are terrific including John Mills, Kirk Douglas et al and Martin Scorsese is, as usual, lucid and enthusiastic. As well as the main film there's a host of excellent extras making up a really great package. Thoroughly recommended to film fans of any vintage!

Apparently 17 years in the making this film by Craig McCall was not actually released until after the death of Jack Cardiff in 2009 at the venerable age of 94. Jack had truly enjoyed a 'wonderful life' in the film industry working with many of the cinema greats in a career that spanned so many changes. His important contribution was recognised in 2000 when he was awarded an OBE. In 2001 he became the first director of photography in history to be awarded an honorary academy award. An honour that he thoroughly deserved in a unique career. He once accurately described the film industry as "full of hypocrisy and hyperbole", but thankfully that did not put him off of leaving his indelible mark on film.

I am a great lover of fine cinematography which is often the difference between a good film and a great film. It was the beautiful colour cinematography of Winton Hoch that helped kindle an early love of cinema. When I look back at many of the films I loved, I find that Jack Cardiff was often behind the lens. Take a moment to consider his amazing CV. The beautiful Vermeer like lighting of Powell and Pressburger's "Black Narcissus". The same teams classic little wonder of technicolour in "The Red Shoes". That hauntingly atmospheric film "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" graced by the beauty of Ava Gardner. John Huston's great African odyssey in "The African Queen" with Bogart and Hepburn. Perhaps less well known but equally impressive was the stunning photography in Richard Fleischer's epic "The Vikings", where the gorgeous Norwegian fjords never looked better. Then there was the sublime desert scenery brought magically to life in Henry Hathaway's strange, all but forgotten Saharan western "Legend of the Lost", starring that colossus of the industry John Wayne. Cardiff even went on to forge a fine sub career as a director of films, but later following the collapse of the British film industry went back to camera work.

This film has interviews with many of the actors and directors that Cardiff worked with. Sir John Mills, Charlton Heston, Moira Shearer, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall and Richard Fleischer are amongst those who contribute. Most notable perhaps is the contribution of Martin Scorcese a living encycopedia of film lore, who acknowledges how influential Cardiff was in his own films, and interestingly describes how he used techniques from "The Red Shoes" in his own film "Raging Bull". Films that you might be forgiven for thinking as polar opposites. Cardiff himself gives a fascinating insight into his own work and how he was influenced by great painters like Turner who's stunning use of light he tried to replicate on film. One only has to look at his films to see that he succeeded in this aim. Cardiff talks candidly about the legendary characters he worked with like Bogart, Wayne, Flynn, Hepburn, Gardner, Hepburn, Huston and many others. There are even clips shown from his own home movies and studio portraits that he took of beauties like Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe. The only pity is that this documentary is just a whistle stop tour of a great career. It could have been so much longer. But as tributes go, this is a pretty good one. Cardiff seemed to be a genuinely humble man who was happiest behind the camera where he created his little miracles of colour and light. The glowing tributes of so many luminaries seem to testify to the high regard he was held in by those who had the privelege to work with him. Well worth watching for those who are interested in how cinematic art is created.

This shows how good, how imaginative, and how technically sound Cardiff was.
And such a decent chap too. Worth watching again and again.