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Lancoor A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

l_rawjalaurence The cinematographer Jack Cardiff might not be that well known. but he worked as director pf photography on some seminal productions, notably for Powell and Pressburger in the late 1940s. The visual style of THE RED SHOES (1948) and BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) is chiefly down to Cardiff's brilliant photography, allied to Powell's imagination. Cardiff began his career in the 1930s working on quota quickies in the British film industry, and was still working in 2007-8, when much of this documentary was filmed. In between he worked on other seminal productions, notably THE African QUEEN (1951), THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA (1954), and THE VIKINGS (1957). Cardiff comes across as a modest person with a highly developed visual intelligence. The documentary also contains reminiscences from stars who are no longer with us, such as Sir John Mills, and Kathleen Byron, as well as such luminaries as Scorsese. Definitely worth a look for anyone interested in photography in the pre-digital era.

st-shot Made shortly before his death Cameraman: the life and work of Jack Cardiff is an excellent bio on Cardiff and due to his long career the history of color film as well. Working into his nineties the highly lucid and spry octogenarian covers a lot of ground with emphasis on his collaboration with the the team of Powell and Pressburger at Archer studios which produced two of the finest color works in film history Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. There of course were decades of others that also shined from Archer and beyond with The African Queen, Pandora and the Flyiong Dutchman, War and Peace and The Vikings and Cameraman shows healthy snippets from each.Amiable and self effacing Cardiff himself makes for a wonderful guide mixing anecdotes and methods free of ego and judgment. This doc is a must for film historians as well as anyone that has ever been under the spell of celluloid magic.

Neil Doyle Jack Cardiff began his life in show biz, part of a touring troupe with his mom and dad and even appeared in bit roles in silent films. But it wasn't until he got behind a camera and discovered all the lighting techniques he would go on to use for either color or B&W that his fame spread.I've always felt that if he had filmed no other works than BLACK NARCISSUS, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP or THE RED SHOES, his immortality was guaranteed.By an interesting use of film clips, good narration, and comments from stars who worked with him on various films, this documentary is among the best I've ever seen on any celebrity whose work on film has so many highs and lows.Modest about his fame, he mentions how he's seldom recognized by fans at premieres of epics he photographed. "Who's that?" they will say. "Oh, he's nobody." Absolutely riveting use of clips from BLACK NARCISSUS and THE RED SHOES, in particular, show just how masterful his use of Technicolor was. Lauren Bacall, Sophia Loren, Moira Shearer, Kathleen Byron, Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas are among the stars who speak about the experience of working with him. Bacall tells how Bogart never cared much about his appearance in a film, only the film itself and he had complete confidence in Jack Cardiff on THE African QUEEN.Excellent documentary, well worth any film fan's attention.

Robert J. Maxwell What a talented, honest, and generous man Jack Cardiff was. Talented not just because as a camerman or a director he worked on so many successful films but because it was his work that made them memorable. He's honest because in this hour-and-a-half biographical tribute he confesses his weaknesses and never brags. He began knowing nothing about technicolor except what he learned from studying painting. And how would he like to end his career? He'd like to "drop dead on the set." Generous because he credits his co-workers, though he's willing to refer generally to certain "strains." He knows nothing of CGIs but he doesn't put them down, as some curmudgeons might. His presentation of self is easy going, laid back, quietly ironic.This cinematic study gave me a greater appreciation of the use of lighting and shadows, of colors, and of the technical aspects of shooting a film -- all of which I may forget tomorrow.But -- well, look at this. There is a startling scene in "The Red Shoes" in which Leonide Massine in a garish costume leaps in from offscreen and lands next to the still and reflective figure of Moira Shearer. It's not just scary. It's spooky. And here's how photographer Cardiff shot the scene. Massine leaps in at the usual 24 frames per second. At the top of his leap, for a fraction of a second, Cardiff speeds up to 48 frames per second, before returning to the 24 fps standard. That overcranking of the camera slows the leap down for a moment at its zenith, so that Massine's slightly demonic figure seems to pause and hang in the air before dropping to the floor. It's barely noticeable but it adds to the impact of the movement.Cardiff grew old and wound up directing shorts and a couple of crummy B movies, but it didn't seem to depress him much because he loved his work, taking whatever came his way. (He died at 94.) And he continued his painting. Some were originals but many were precise copies of studies by people like Degas and Renoir, whose work he enjoyed but couldn't afford to buy. Pretty sensible when you come to think about it.Anyway, I'll pretty much skip over the "educational" value of the documentary because, after all, that's its main function, isn't it? As it turned out, I learned some things about things I thought I already knew things about. Chiaroscuro can have more than one light, source, for instance. Cardiff illustrates this point in showing us a beautiful photographic portrait he took of the flawless Audrey Hepburn. And Marlene Dietrich -- every film freak knows that she was fussy about how she was lighted, having brought certain obsessions with her from von Sternberg. I knew she had a "good" profile but never dreamed that she insisted the overhead light be at an angle of 45 degrees from her facial place in order to disguise what she thought was a tiny but unsightly bump in her nose. And it never occurred to me -- nor would I have cared if I did know -- that she insisted her make up man draw a wight line from her eyebrows to her nostrils to make her nose seem straighter.What a remarkable man.