Jack Cardiff: Rembrandt with a Camera?

In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.

Pan's Labyrinth: Deserving of an Oscar for Cinematography

Interview with Guillermo Navarro


Oscar for best Cinematography Goes to Pan's Labyrinth

For those that watch DVDs for the Commentary - Walk the Line Voted #1

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Top 100 film commentaries on DVD 

Cinematography in The Quiet American

Roger Ebert's Review of "The Quiet American" (Four stars)

Where the film lacks dramatic tension, Christopher Doyle’s cinematography provides a much needed visual fillip. A veteran of the Hong Kong film industry and regular Wong Kar-wai collaborator, Doyle also shot Noyce’s other recent release, Rabbit Proof Fence (Phillip Noyce, 2002). In The Quiet American, Doyle’s cinematography varies imaginatively from the destabilising, hand-held battle sequences to the static, Ozu-inspired interior scenes in Fowler’s Saigon residence. A particularly effective device, repeated on several occasions, has Pyle looming erratically into frame, an obliquely suggestive formal representation of the increasingly ambiguous status of his character.

Is there anything to learn about cinematography by watching Black and White?

Black and white feature films list: the best cinematography