American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

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Picture Partners By JOHN HUSTON Noted Screen Writer ; Director of "The Maltese Falcon." NOT so long ago, my concept of cameramen was that they were nice fellows who concentrated their efforts on turning out pretty compositions and making the leading lady look glamorous. To be perfectly frank, I also had an idea that the present system of crediting them as "Director of Photography" was more or less a polite fiction — dressing things up with a new name, and not much else. But that was before a change from writing scripts to directing them put me out on the set actually to work with these men of the camera. Practical experience very quickly forced me to revise my ideas, and convinced me that the industry's cinematographers are, as a class, perhaps the most invaluable and yet generally underrated men in Hollywood. My first big surprise came when I discovered that these men are interested in a lot more than just turning out pretty pictures. They do that as a matter of course; it's part of their job. But much more than that, they're storytellers par excellence. Instead of using written or spoken words, they tell their stories with the camera. Often — if you'll only take advantage of their knack of visualizing drama — they can, with a simple, pictorial effect, put over dramatic points upon which writers or directors may have toiled and worried vainly. Speaking for the moment strictly as a writer, I wish there were some way in which the men and women who write our screenplays could have an opportunity of working more closely with the men who photograph them. As writers, most of us naturally think largely, if not exclusively, in terms of dramatic situations and dialog. Yet we're writing for what is fundamentally a pictorial medium. The situations and dialog are necessary, Heaven knows, but if we lose sight of the basic pictorial appeal of our medium, we're likely to use a lot of words to put over a point or situation which could much more easily be gotten across by visual means. As a writer, I often wondered why so many changes were made in my scripts between the time they left my typewriter and the time they reached the screen. Now I know! Like most of the rest of us, I simply didn't know how to write for the camera : I sometimes wrote things which, when they reached the set, turned out to be impractical cinematically; at other times, and for the same reason, I'd try to put into words things which could more easily be told in pictured action. Even in the course of directing two pictures I've repeatedly seen a story-minded cameraman like Arthur Edeson, A.S.C., with whom I made my first picture "The Mal Actor Walter Huston congratulates his son. Director John Huston, while Director of Photography Arthur Edeson, A.S.C. (seated) and Actor Humphrey Bogart look on. tese Falcon," or Ernest Haller, A.S.C, with whom I am now making "In This Our Life," make suggestions which would by-pass a page or so of dialog at a time, putting over the same idea visually in less footage — and far more effectively. As a director, I've come to value these suggestions from the cameraman very highly. Of course, I'm still pretty young and new at the business of directing pictures, but I can't conceive of any director who really has the interest of his production at heart ever getting so big and experienced that he could ignore the suggestions that come so naturally from his partner at the camera. And the man at the camera can be just that — a partner to the director: really a co-director taking full responsibility for the visual side of the production, leaving the director free to concentrate on the actors and their work. That title, "Director of Photography" is a lot more than a mere phrase ! It's a very specific definition of the invaluable service the cinematographer can offer to a production — if we'll let him. What do I mean by the "visual" side of the production — ? A lot more, I've found, than merely pictorial composition, high or low-key lighting, and the star's appearance! For example, our scripts today concern themselves largely with dialog, with only a sketchy indication of where a scene is laid, and little, if any indication of camera-angles and business. If you shot a picture solely from the indications given in the script, you'd prob ably end up with a picture that was 85 or 90% long-shots. The writers, you see, expect the folks on the set to break a scene up into its component individual angles or (as I think the Russians call them) "cutting pieces." And one of the first things I learned when I started directing was that this isn't nearly as easy as it might sound. You've got to figure out how each shot is to be coordinated with all the other shots that will ultimately make up the sequence, even though the individual, intercut shots may be photographed days apart. Then there are details to remember — such as, in a series of intercut individual shots of two people talking to each other, keeping the figures on the screen approximately the same size; keeping directions of movement straight, so actors don't get apparently crossed up between one scene and the next; even keeping track of the direction in which a player ought to look at another one offstage so as to keep things flowing naturally on the screen. My experience has been that a director can do a much better job with cast and story if he'll lot his director of photog raphy serve as a virtual co-director, taking almost complete charge of details. And most directors of photography— at least such men as Edeson and Haller — are glad to do so. They admit it makes them work a good deal harder, but they welcome that because it gives them a chance to contribute more > "n (Continued on Pag? 591) American Cinematogkai-hki; December, l'.'ll