idlesuperstar:Happy 101st birthday, Douglas Slocombe (b. 10th Feb 1913)Douglas is responsible for on
idlesuperstar:Happy 101st birthday, Douglas Slocombe (b. 10th Feb 1913)Douglas is responsible for one of the greatest in-camera effects ever produced on film: six D'Ascoynes in one shot of Kind Hearts and Coronets, and he is rightly celebrated for it as even now - 65 years later - it’s seamless and perfect, and also unshowy. His work with Ealing gave him plenty of opportunity for creative cinematography effects - making the White Suit very very white; showing what Joe is reading in the Trump in Hue and Cry; the dizzying run down the Eiffel Tower steps in The Lavender Hill Mob, to name a few. But he marries this creativity to his experience as a photojournalist and documentary film-maker before the war to lend his Ealing films a realism that was to become a characteristic of the studio.His work at Ealing also shows his ability with light and shade, his use of shadows and angles to create atmosphere and tension: Michael Redgrave in the train at the beginning of The Captive Heart, Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway waiting for a burglar in the dark in The Lavender Hill Mob. And so this mastery of shadows and angles is perfect for one of the most beautifully shot black-and-white British films, The Servant; where every shadow and every mirror reflection shows the growing twists and warps of the story. Had he not lost his sight in his later years it’s entirely possible that he would have continued working: he made the transition to colour and technicolor wonderfully, bringing quality and class to films as varied as The Italian Job, (elevating what is an average film into a thing of beauty) The Great Gatsby, and the first three Indiana Jones films. He is brilliant without being obtrusive: a true master of the medium. -- source link
#douglas slocombe