American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

BOTTLENECK OF THE MOVIES By PEVERELL MARLEY, A.S.C. WE hear a lot about bottlenecks in industry these days. It's fashionable to talk about them; whether it's making tanks or tableware, the industry that doesn't have a bottleneck just doesn't rate conversationally. Our own industry has its bottleneck, too. It's a unique one, at that, for appropriately enough it's really made of glass. The bottleneck of the notion picture industry is the lens of the camera. All the sweat and toil and tears — all the expense and ideas :iid effort that go to make a modern production have to be * This article, written originally for the Annua] Number of the "Hollywood Reporter." gives such an interesting comparison of the way cinematography has advanced during recent years that it is reprinted hire, through the courtesy of the "Hollj wood Reporter." squeezed through that little glass bottleneck of the lens before the production teaches saleable form and can be sent out to the theatres to make (we hope!) its profit. If you draw up one of those organizational charts that production managers are so fond of hanging on the walls of their offices, you'll see this very clearly illustrated. The result will look something like a pyramid balancing on its tip: at the top you'll see the executives, producers and production heads. Below them will come the writers, scenarists and art-directors. Next in the narrowing order will be the director and the actors. And finally, you'll see that the whole involved structure rests on the lens of the camera and the unfailing accuracy and artistry of the man who operates it to put the picture on film. So at this time, ladies and gentlemen of the cinema, I give you the cinematographer! You can call him what you like — cameraman, cinematographer or director of photography. He occupies a unique position in the industry, for his is the one assignment in the whole chain of production which cannot be by-passed. Pictures can be and at times actually have been made without virtually every one of the many people and services we're normally accustomed to considering as essential — but motion pictures cannot be made without a camera. The cinematographer, too, is the one man in the industry who has to stand completely alone in his work, with no one to check his decisions or share his responsibility. Once the rushes are on the screen, plenty of people are ready, willing and more or less able to tell him whether they like or dislike the effects he has put on the screen. But in the actual shooting he — and he alone — must make the decisions and then, sink or swim, stand by them. It's a many-sided job he faces each time he shoots a scene. Each scene must, in the first place, be made an artistically and technically acceptable picture. It must be lit and photographed to bring out the full "production value" of set and action. The players (with the exceptin of Boris Karloff) must, generally speaking, always appear at their best. Each scene must carry through in its lighting and photographic treatment the visual mood appropriate to the action of scene and sequence. And finally, every scene in the entire production must be considered, not only for its own individual photographic and dramatic values, but as a unit which must coordinate visually with the production as a whole. It's a far cry, indeed, from the relatively simple task of the pioneer cameramen of the early "flickers," who had merely to set up his camera at a predetermined distance from his actors en a sunlit stage, turn his cap backward and "grind sixteen!" If you want a yardstick by which to measure the technical and artistic strides cinematography has made during recent years, take an evening off and drop in to one of the several places in town where the old-time silent pictures of fifteen and twenty years ago are screened; then drop into the handiest theatre and catch even the bottom half of one of 1941 's double-bills. Even overlooking the item of sound, you'll see cinematic progress written boldly across the screen in every scene. Just the other day I had an opportunity to make a comparison of that sort. Out at 20th Century-Fox, in preparation for making a modernized version of that amusing satire of the 20's, "Chicago," we screened a print of the original version of the same story, which I photographed "way back when" for the C. B. DeMille Studio. Watching that old-timer unreel was (Continued on Page 589) 56 I December, 11*11 American Cinematograi-hek