American Cinematographer - February 2001 - 132

of

irony, contrast, complex character¬
triumphs
far beyond the puerile simplicities of
other American films of the period." Like
D.W. Griffith, the era's other reigning
master of the grand epic film, von Stro¬
heim was interested in the complexity of
use

ization and thematic richness

the truth.

Lennig accurately characterizes
production of every von Stroheim film
as "a nightmare," but he writes that he
finds Merry-Go-Round (1923) "particu¬
larly difficult to discuss
because of its
confused authorship." After von Stro¬
the

...

THE ART OF THE
CINEMATOGRAPHER

heim had shot 200,000 feet of film over
13 months, Universal

A Survey and Interviews
with hive Masters
by Leonard Maltin

This revised and

enlarged
republication of the original
New York (1971) edition,
Behind the Camera: The

Cinematographer's Art,
presents interviews with a
number of accomplished
directors of photography,
including:
*

Arthur Miller, ASC

How Green Was

My Valley,
Anna and the King of Siam

production chief
Irving Thalberg yanked him off the
project and replaced him with mediocre
talent Rupert Julian. Von Stroheim had
no acting role in the film, so he had little
leverage with Thalberg. The version of
Merry-Go-Round released in 1923
includes only about 600 feet of von Stro¬
heim's original footage.
"The firing of von Stroheim was a
significant step in the motion picture
industry," writes Lennig. After that, "the
director was an employee, not the boss."
Von Stroheim's difficulties with

Thalberg again came into play during the
production of Greed (1924) for MGM.
This mammoth adaptation of the novel
McTeague by Frank Norris took six
months to film. William Daniels, ASC
the cinematographer on every von

was
*

Hal Mohr, ASC

The Jazz Singer,

Captain Blood

Stroheim film from Blind Husbands to
The

Merry Widow. He said of Greed,
was very hard going. We
were six weeks in Death Valley during
the summer, July and August. It was 132
degrees under the shade of an
"Much of it

*

Hal Rosson, ASC

The Wizard of Oz,

Singin'

in the Rain

umbrella."
Lucien Ballard, ASC
The Wild Bunch, True Grit
*

Von Stroheim cut Greed down to
24-reel version that

eight hours,
Thalberg
destroyed the original negative for most
of the film. The eight-hour version of the
film might have been von Stroheim's
masterpiece and one of cinema's
glories. To his own detriment, he could
a

but it

Conrad Hall, ASC
In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy
*

and the Sundance Kid

Paperback, 81/4" x 11",
with 105 illustrations

was

ran

released in 10 reels.

never cut one

of his films down to less

than four hours.

By 1929,
(800) 448-0145
WWW.CINEMATOGRAPHER.COM

126

finished

as a

films such

von Stroheim was
director and was acting in

as

The Great Gabbo (1929)

and The Lost

Squadron (1932), playing
persona. He continued
to act for a living for the rest of his life,
and he always attempted to expand his
off his

roles

onscreen

or

create additional actions for his

character. He had memorable roles in

Grand Illusion (1937), Five Graves to
Cairo (1943) and Sunset Boulevard

(1950). He said that he found returning to
Hollywood and portraying the role of
Max

Mayerling, the "goddamned butler"
particularly humili¬
ating, maintaining that director Billy
Wilder refused to incorporate many of
his suggestions for the character.
Von Stroheim's uniquely sophisti¬
in Sunset Boulevard,

cated and twisted films continue to

intrigue today's audiences with their
obsessive attention to detail and charac¬
ter.

"[He]

or a

was more

than

a

grimy realist

fabricator of continental sin who

doggedly recorded miles upon miles of
footage," writes Lennig. "Unlike Griffith,
whose

career

because he

faltered in the 1920s

repeating himself and
making full use of the cinematic
language he had developed, von Stro¬
heim was growing. That his potential
was never allowed to develop fully is an
almost unspeakable tragedy."
was

not

70mm Book Available

The March '00 issue of AC
featured

a

review of Film Presentation

for the 21st Century:

70mm Super Defin¬
that
was published in the Netherlands, and
we subsequently received several phone
ition Cinema, a collection of essays

calls from readers who couldn't find it for
sale. We

recently learned that the book
domestically by mail order
for $15 (which includes shipping) through
is available

International 70mm Publishers, RO. Box
65611, Los Angeles, California, 90065. It
is also available in

Europe through Inter¬

national 70mm Publishers, Katwoudehof

36, 6843 BX Arnheim, The Netherlands,
011-31-263-815-950,
e-mail:

fax

int70mm@dds.nl. AC is
book's

grateful to the
publishers and contributing

authors, Johan C.M. Wolthuis and Paul
H.

Rayton, for sharing this information.®
American Cinematographer - February 2001

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2001
