The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (65 page)

No one really argues about Capra’s decline after 1947—even the facility goes then. No one need dispute the vitality of everything up to and including
It Happened One Night
. In between fall the problem films, made in Capra’s glory—he won the directing Oscar three times. Better by far that we argue over them than fall for their woeful messages.

Leos Carax
(Alexandre Oscar Dupont), b. Paris, France, 1960
1980:
Strangulation Blues
(s). 1984:
Boy Meets Girl
. 1986:
Mauvais Sang/Bad Blood
. 1991:
Les Amants du Pont-Neuf/The Lovers on the Bridge
. 1999:
Pola X
. 2008: “Merde,” an episode from
Tokyo!

First of all, Carax is a great self-fabulist, something like a mixture of Tarantino and Godard of the sixties, thoroughly caught up in the melodrama of being a Great Moviemaker. To say that this is tiresome and self-defeating only raises the possibility that Carax is looking for some fulminating disaster. As it is, his best work is burning with a feeling for tragedy and apocalypse. Even an admirer, Gavin Smith, speaking of
Pola X
, says that “his narrative and formal risk-taking are indistinguishable from failure.”

If you think about it, that could fit a Godard who, after 1968, had simply continued with narrative films while growing increasingly besieged and enraged. But it also alerts one to the way in which the ostensible passion in Carax—his best or worst quality, depending on your point of view—is actually rather calculated, or intellectual. And it is in the degree to which he seems conscious and self-conscious of being a modern enfant terrible that Carax might yet do his best work. So far, it seems to me, he is both insufferable and extraordinary—and that’s too rich a tradition among film directors for one to dismiss it.

His first two films are the most ordinary or accessible, and they are vivid and compelling.
Les Amants du Pont-Neuf
is unforgettable, a monstrosity and yet a work of real fascination. It is also very moving, and shows a terrific use of Juliette Binoche.
Pola X
(which came after a significant interval) is a bizarre updating of Herman Melville’s
Pierre, or the Ambiguities
(“Pola” is actually an acronym on the French title—but, of course “Leos Carax” was an anagram of “Alex Oscar”).

Jack Cardiff
(1914–2009), b. Great Yarmouth, England
1958:
Intent to Kill
. 1959:
Beyond This Place
. 1960:
Sons and Lovers; Scent of Mystery; Holiday in Spain
. 1962:
My Geisha; The Lion
. 1964:
The Long Ships
. 1965:
Young Cassidy
(codirected with John Ford);
The Liquidator
. 1967:
The Mercenaries
. 1968:
Girl on a Motorcycle
. 1973:
Penny Gold; The Mutations
.

No wonder film students ask whether directors of photography are sometimes the authors of films when some reviewers still end unfavorable notices with “but beautifully photographed by …” It is a contradiction in terms for a bad film to be “beautifully photographed,” just as it is nonsensical to expect a commercial movie not to be adequately photographed—i.e., with correct exposure, level framing, smooth movements, sharp focus, good color reproduction. A more reliable guide for newcomers is the legend that when directors lose their impulse or interest they degenerate into photographers. Photography is a moderately complex technology, accessible to many people; direction is an art, denied to most. A “correct” image is much easier than a creative and personal visual style. Some directors may choose never to use the viewfinder, but only if they have preconceived a shot and can trust an operator and lighting cameraman to achieve it. If more dramatic evidence is needed, we have only to ask how many photographers have proved themselves interesting directors. With a man like Jack Cardiff, the difference in potential between photography and direction is manifest. Cardiff’s own films are characterless works, either flashy or drab. Yet as a photographer Cardiff was so famous for his bold color effects that that reputation promoted him to directing.

Cardiff became a camera operator in England in the mid-1930s and worked on
The Ghost Goes West
(35, René Clair) and
Knight Without Armour
(37, Jacques Feyder). He joined Technicolor and was operator on
Wings of the Morning
(37, Harold Schuster), the first full-color film made in Britain. He went on to photograph several travelogues for Technicolor—ironically, since his most characteristic work in later years was exaggerated, heavily dramatic color, rather than the cool clarity for which Technicolor is famous. He began working as a lighting cameraman in 1939 and, after the war, photographed some rather eccentric, gimmicky but very striking pictures:
The Four Feathers
(39, Zoltan Korda);
Western Approaches
(44, Pat Jackson);
Caesar and Cleopatra
(45, Gabriel Pascal);
A Matter of Life and Death
(46, Michael Powell); Kathleen Byron’s red lipstick in
Black Narcissus
(47, Powell);
The Red Shoes
(48, Powell); the breathtakingly elaborate movements of
Under Capricorn
(49, Alfred Hitchcock);
The Black Rose
(50, Henry Hathaway);
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
(51, Albert Lewin);
The African Queen
(51, John Huston);
The Barefoot Contessa
(54, Joseph L. Mankiewicz);
War and Peace
(56, King Vidor);
The Brave One
(56, Irving Rapper);
The Prince and the Showgirl
(57, Laurence Olivier);
Legend of the Lost
(57, Hathaway);
The Vikings
(58, Richard Fleischer);
Fanny
(61, Joshua Logan).

By the mid-seventies, he was a cameraman again, often on location or in the service of poor action pictures:
Scalawag
(73, Kirk Douglas);
Death on the Nile
(78, John Guillermin);
The Fifth Musketeer
(79, Ken Annakin);
Avalanche Express
(79, Mark Robson);
The Awakening
(80, Mike Newell);
The Dogs of War
(80, John Irvin);
Ghost Story
(81, Irvin);
The Wicked Lady
(83, Michael Winner);
Conan the Destroyer
(84, Fleischer);
Scandalous
(84, Rob Cohen);
Rambo: First Blood Part II
(85, George P. Cosmatos);
Cat’s Eyes
(85, Lewis Teague);
Tai-Pan
(86, Daryl Duke);
Million Dollar Mystery
(87, Fleischer);
Call from Space
(89, Fleischer);
The Magic Balloon
(90, Ronald Neame);
The Dance of Shiva
(98, Jamie Payne);
The Suicidal Dog
(00, Paul Merton).

These late films were without interest, and were well photographed. Cardiff no longer had the right projects or directors—and no one has Technicolor, now, a beauty that we all abandoned. Cardiff got an honorary Oscar in 2001, and was the hit of the show. He remained, till his end, a calm, lucid defender of the beauties of his era.

Claudia Cardinale
, b. Tunis, Tunisia, 1938
From beauty queen to international movie star in seven years is a modern fairy story, and Cardinale is proof that if a woman has a luscious enough body, an attentive face, and some animation, then she can be the princess in that story. The fairy godfather in her case was producer Franco Cristaldi. After Claudia had been voted the most beautiful Italian girl in Tunis, and played a small part in
Goha
(57, Jacques Baratier), he saw that she was worthy of more comprehensive titles and that, where BB had prospered, CC might do as well. She played in
I Soliti Ignoti
(58, Mario Monicelli) and came to England for
Upstairs and Downstairs
(58, Ralph Thomas). Whereupon she had a string of parts in Italian films, often as a glamorous object but more thoughtfully used by Visconti, until she was taken up by Hollywood:
La Prima Notte
(59, Alberto Cavalcanti);
Un Maledetto Imbroglio
(59, Pietro Germi);
I Bell’ Antonio
(59, Mauro Bolognini);
Austerlitz
(59, Abel Gance and Roger Richebé);
Il Delfini
(60, Francisco Maselli);
La Ragazza con la Valigia
(60, Valerio Zurlini);
Rocco and His Brothers
(60, Luchino Visconti);
La Viaccia
(61, Bolognini);
Cartouche
(61, Philippe de Broca);
Senilità
(62, Bolognini);
8½
(63, Federico Fellini);
The Leopard
(63, Visconti);
La Ragazza di Bube
(63, Luigi Comencini);
The Pink Panther
(63, Blake Edwards);
The Magnificent Showman
(64, Henry Hathaway);
Gli Indifferenti
(64, Maselli);
Blindfold
(65, Philip Dunne);
Of a Thousand Delights
(65, Visconti);
Lost Command
(66, Mark Robson);
The Professionals
(66, Richard Brooks); in the “Fata Armenia” episode from
Le Fate
(66, Monicelli);
Don’t Make Waves
(67, Alexander Mackendrick);
Il Giorno della Civetta
(67, Damiano Damiani);
Once Upon a Time in the West
(69, Sergio Leone);
A Fine Pair
(69, Maselli);
The Adventures of Gerard
(70, Jerzy Skolimowski); with Bardot in
The Legend of Frenchie King
(71, Christian-Jaque);
The Red Tent
(71, Mikhail Kalatozov);
La Scoumoune
(72, Jose Giovanni);
Il Giorno del Furore
(73, Antonio Calenda); and
Libera, Amore Mio
(73, Bolognini).

The time may be at hand when she has to go to make the pasta, but she has had her day and has been married to Cristaldi and to Pasquale Squitieri. Her sumptuousness will never quite be forgotten, nor that raucous voice that seems to belong to another face. Meanwhile, she has been in
La Part du Feu
(77, Etienne Perrier);
Corleone
(77, Pasquale Squitieri);
L’Arma
(78, Squitieri);
La Petite Fille en Velours Bleu
(78, Alan Bridges);
Escape to Athens
(79, George Pan Cosmatos);
La Pelle
(81, Liliana Cavani);
The Salamander
(81, Peter Zinner);
Le Cadeau
(81, Michel Lang);
Fitzcarraldo
(82, Werner Herzog);
Le Ruffian
(83, Giovanni);
Princess Daisy
(83, Waris Hussein) for TV; with Mastroianni in
Enrico IV
(83, Marco Bellocchio);
L’Été Prochain
(85, Nadine Trintignant);
La Donna delle Meraviglie
(85, Alberto Bevilacque);
La Storia
(85, Luigi Comencini);
Un Homme Amoureux
(87, Diane Kurys);
Blu Eletricco
(88, Elfriede Gaeng);
Hiver 54, l’Abbé Pierre
(89, Denis Amar);
La Revolution Française
(89, Robert Enrico and Richard T. Heffron);
The Son of the Pink Panther
(93, Edwards);
Elles Ne Pensent Qu’à Ça …
(94, Charlotte Dubreuil);
Nostromo
(96, Alastair Reid);
Riches, Belles, Etc
. (98, Bunny Schpoliansky);
Brigands
(99, Squitieri);
Elisabeth
(99, Squitieri);
And Now … Ladies and Gentlemen
(02, Claude Lelouch).

Julien Carette
(1897–1966), b. Paris
Jean Renoir always looked kindly on survivors, even if they were unashamed opportunists. In
La Règle du Jeu
(39), Carette embodied this vagrant figure as the poacher first seen taking a rabbit. He inveigles himself into the household, flirting with the gamekeeper’s wife, and then conspires with the keeper in the final tragedy in error. But at the end, he shrugs his shoulders and packs, stops to offer a word and a smoke to the gamekeeper, and is off with a “good luck” to Renoir’s Octave. A small, dark man, by turns sighing and spiteful, Carette brought a pagan unscrupulousness to the part, as when he sings to the keeper’s wife: “People like me never show themselves twice. If their first shot’s not a bull’s-eye they’re off in a trice.” That scapegoat charm made Carette a delightful supporting figure in several of Renoir’s films:
La Grande Illusion
(37);
La Marseillaise
(38);
La Bête Humaine
(38); and
Elena et les Hommes
(56).

As a student actor it was in Carette’s character to fail his exams. Nevertheless, he found work and made his film debut in 1932 in
L’Affaire Est dans le Sac
(Pierre Prévert), the first of over a hundred films. Seldom ranging far outside his sly spiv, these are his best movies:
Les Gaietés de l’Escadron
(32, Maurice Tourneur);
Gonzague ou l’Accordeur
(33, Jean Grémillon);
Aventure à Paris
(36, Marc Allégret);
Gribouille
(37, Allégret);
Entrée des Artistes
(38, Allégret);
Menaces
(39, Edmond T. Greville);
Battements de Coeur
(39, Henri Decoin);
Parade en Sept Nuits
(41, Allégret);
Lettres d’Amour
(42, Claude Autant-Lara);
Adieu Léonard
(43, Prévert);
Sylvie et le Fantôme
(45, Autant-Lara);
Les Portes de la Nuit
(46, Marcel Carné); in Carné’s unfinished
La Fleur de l’Age
(47);
Une Si Jolie Petite Plage
(48, Yves Allégret);
Occupe-Toi d’Amélie
(49, Autant-Lara);
La Marie du Port
(50, Carné);
L’Auberge Rouge
(51, Autant-Lara);
La Fête à Henriette
(53, Julien Duvivier);
Le Bon Dieu sans Confession
(53, Autant-Lara);
L’Amour d’une Femme
(53, Grémillon);
Si Paris Nous Était Conté
(56, Sacha Guitry);
Le Joueur
(58, Autant-Lara);
Pantalaskas
(59, Paul Pariot);
Archimède, le Clochard
(59, Gilles Grangier);
La Jument Verte
(61, Autant-Lara);
Vive Henri IV, Vive l’Amour
(61, Autant-Lara); and
Les Aventures de Salavin
(65, Pierre Granier-Deferre).