Biographical Films


Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
Craig McCall
2010

Bigrpahies might be consider a sub division of "non-fiction" film which differ in a variety of ways from "documentary films".

To use our "speech" analogy, biographical films are a kind of “Let me Introduce” speech.

Biographical films come in several varieties: One tells life story; one focus on some aspect of the person’s life.Compare this film with Bananas is My Business 1985 Helena Solberg. Compare also with “Narrative biographies” like Night and Day, Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet. The Syory of Louis Pasteur. There is a history channel Serpico and a film Serpico with Al Pacino.

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Pierce and Bananas is My Business are similar in they both deal with someone connected to the film industry and interestingly enough each one is directed by a person of the same sex as the person whose biography is being told. This might be related to the idea of "the gaze". What attracts the film maker to the topic?

How does this film compare to the films we have been watching? It is non-fiction but it is documentary?

Something of a review

What are the aspects of documentary we have been talking about?

Narration/Narrator
Should there be a narrator? Compare Land without Bread with Titicut Faollies
If so who should it be (omniscient? character in the film, etc.)

No narration: Titicut Follies

What should the image be? Should you show what wasn't there?
dramatization
re-enactment
reconstruction

 Message
"document": record what is happening
instruct: teaching
introduce: biography
persuade: propoganda (political) (consider consciousness raising vs. brainwashing)
 Who should be subject of films? Everyday people (exotic and individual): Nanook
Everyday people (not exotic not individual); Night Mail, Drifters
No people (no single individual followed stress on institution) The River, The Plow that Broke the Plains

 BE READY TO THINK ABOUT HOW THESE APPLY TO THIS FILM AND OTHER FILMS

It is perhaps unfortunate that more people are unaware of the films Cardiff made – especially those of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Go look especially at The Red Shoes 1948; Black Narcissus 1947; and Stairway to Heaven 1946

One indication of the importance of Cardiff can be seen by the number and caliber of people who talk in the documentary. How many of them do you know or can you recognize?

AFTER THE FILM

What can you say about the film as a biography?

How would you compare it to Nanook? What period of life for each does the film cover? What do you know about his personal life? (Childhood, adolescence, marriage, children?). Here are some details of his life which are either missing or barely touched on in the film.

Married three times:

Sylvia (? - ?) (divorced)
Julie (? - ?) (divorced)
Niki Cardiff (? - 22 April 2009) (his death) 1 child
 Has 4 sons: John, Rodney, Peter and Mason.

He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen's 2000 New Year's Honours list for his services to cinematography.

He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.

Member of the British Society of Cinematographers (B.S.C.).

His two Academy Awards (1947, Cinematography; 2000, Honorary Award) came 53 years apart. This the record for 1) most years between first and and last Academy Awards and 2) longest hiatus between Academy Awards.

He wrote an autobiography, "Magic Hour: The Life of a Cameraman" (1996).

What information are we given?

We are given information about his parents who were vaudeville performers. Why would this be? Part of the selection is doubtless based on the answer to the question "Why do a film about Jack Cardiff?" The answer rests on why anyone would want to know about him. What did he do and how did he come to do it? In this regard his parents activities as performers indicate a relationship with the performing arts from birth. His marriages and children are less important.

Visually the film opens creatively with images of Cardiff in Red, Yellow and Green - the three colors that 3 strip technicolor films in. The three images are merged (as they are in the films) to form the color image which is what happens here.

How do the aspects of documentary that we have been talking about these apply to Cameraman?

Narration/Narrator

There is narration, mostly by the film maker asking questions which are answered by a number of people.
A variety of people discuss Cardiff and so there is a kind of narration through the questions, answers, and statements made by them.

The people selected are famous in the field (go check the "cast" from IMDB - if you don't recognize their names check out who they are. Many are performers who appear before the camera (Charleton Heston, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Kim Hunter, John Mills etc.) Several who are no longer alive are also in the film, shown through home films and still photos - Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne) Some like Sophia Loren still are. There is an advantage to using home movies since it indicates a more personal relationship with the stars. The actresses portraits (made in part to study their faces) were done with their approval and they appear to have been happy about posing for him.

Other shots show performers which are intercut with shots from the scenes in the film (consider Kathleen Byron's interview which shows scenes from Black Narcissus).

 Reconstruction/dramatization/re-enactment --- staging of events

Events are not staged - film clips are used to show events from the past.

Political message/propaganda (compare with Titicut Follies and compare with next week’s films)

Who should be subject of films? Everyday people (exotic and individual); Nanook, (not exotic not individual); Night Mail, Drifters; (no narration) Titicut Follies; (no people) The River, The Plow that Broke the Plains)

In a sense, most biogrpahical films do not deal with "unknown" people. There is a reason for their being chosen. They are not the "ordinary people" Basil Wright wanted to be the subject of documentary film. In some ways they might even been seen as "exotic".

 Is there a trajectory to the film?

Generally, narrative films produce a trajectory for the main character. There is little change in his character as we might find in a narrative film. He does go from childhood actor through to director with the major part of his career in photogarpghy

Talking Heads problem. When you do many interviews how do you avoid this? Cut away to other things – e.g. the films themselves.