American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 91

the way,
Awards

Opposite:

including 18 more Academy
for Best Cinematography

German-born
director of

between 1950 and 1990.
It took

photography

long time for British
cinematography to reach such dizzy¬
ing heights, however. The art and
craft of lighting was slow to develop
during the formative years of the
U.K. film industry. Investment in
production was often woefully inad¬
equate, and equipment remained
very
primitive,
certainly by
Hollywood standards. Until the
1920s, many of the studios were oldfashioned glass houses in which
productions were lit by a combina¬
tion of daylight and carbon-arc
lamps used for highlighting. British
cameramen also
rarely experimented
with camera movement, tending
towards the use of the "prosceniumarch" style of frontal composition,
with the insertion of occasional
medium

close-ups from the same
position. The results were very flat
and static, with little

of the

sense

dramatic

possibilities offered either
by the creative use of lighting or the
dissection of cinematic space.

Partly as a result of pressure
by the arrival of a small
number of Hollywood cameramen
in Britain during the early 1920s, the
situation slowly began to change.
Some of the studios began importing
more modern
lighting equipment
exerted

and

cameras.

Otto

a

This in

turn

facilitated

much greater control and flexibility,
and a more expressive approach to

lighting began to emerge, particu¬
larly in those studios employing
technicians skilled in modern light¬
ing techniques.
In order to improve the quality
of their productions, some of the
more
enterprising British producers
recognized the potential of import¬
ing cinematographic experts from
overseas. Some were from Hollywood
and others from Continental

Europe,

particularly Germany, which had the
largest and most sophisticated
production facilities outside of
America. Anglo-German coopera¬

Heller, BSC

(far left)
watches actor
Herbert Lom
introduce his son
to a

three-strip

Technicolor
camera

during

the production
of The Ladykiller

(1955).

Beginning in the
1930s, Heller
and other

emigres added
new

ideas and

direction to
British
camerawork.

This page:
Between takes
while filming
The Battle of
Britain in 1968,

tion

proved to be particularly signifi¬
cant in the improvement of British
cinematographic technique.

Rouge and Piccadilly, set respectively
in the shadowy and morally ambigu¬

A number of British filmmak¬

nightclub. Photographed by Werner

including the

ers,

Hitchcock, learned

working

a

Alfred

young

great deal while

co-productions in
Germany. When Hitchcock returned

to

on

Britain to direct his third

The

feature,

Lodger (1926), he brought with

him Italian

cameraman

Gaetano

Ventigmilia, who had photographed
the auteur's previous two films in
Munich. Described by one reviewer
as "the finest British production ever
made," The Lodger clearly bears the
influence of German expressionism
in its

use

of dramatic shadows and

of the
explore the
expressive possibilities of creative
cinematography.
camera

angles, and

first British films

was one

to

The German cinema of the
1920s had also led the way

in the
development of the moving camera,
transforming it from a passive
recorder of action to
able

an

active instru¬

the fluidity and
dynamism of dramatic action and
subjective emotion. The "unchained
camera" made an impact on the
ment

British

to

convey

cinema via director

E.A.

Dupont and his productions Moulin

ous

worlds of the cabaret and the

Brandes, these films

are

distin¬

guished by their rich visual textures
and uninhibited camera mobility,
which are combined in an exciting
cocktail of glamour, modernity,
eroticism and danger.
This type of cinematic sophis¬
tication was temporarily curtailed by
the arrival of sound
cinema

in

1929.

to

the British

Despite

some

debate, Hitchcock's thriller Blackmail
is

generally acknowledged as the first
project had
begun as a silent production, but
Hitchcock, anticipating the impend¬
ing conversion to sound, shot it in a
British "talkie." The

manner

tion of

esteemed
cameraman

Freddie Young,
BSC

explains the
points of
front-projection
techniques to
fine

then-AC editor
Herb Lightman.

Young utilized
the method for
the film's many
intricate aerial
sequences. While
the film was

shot in 35mm
Panavision

anamorphic, the
front-projection
plates were shot
in 65mm to

reduce apparent

grain.

that would allow the inser¬

dialogue

A small
built at Elstree
Studios for the recording of dialogue
sequences via the RCA Photophone
system. The results demonstrate
some of the constraints imposed by
scenes.

temporary stage was

sound: the

talking sequences are very

static and slow
movement

and

compared to the
dynamism of the

silent sequences,

such as the exciting
opening depicting the arrest of a
criminal

by the Metropolitan police.
American

Cinematographer 87
American Cinematographer - December 1999

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