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Underexposed The Neglected Art of The Cinematographer
Underexposed The Neglected Art of The Cinematographer
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Philip Cowan
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Abstract
The artistic contribution that Directors of Photography make to the films that
they shoot, in narrative mainstream cinema, has been historically ignored in
favour of the director-centred auteur theory. In order to address this imbalance
a new approach to attributing authorship in film needs to be implemented, which
acknowledges co-authorship in collaborative film-making. By taking established
auteur methodologies Philip Cowan, himself a practicing Director of Photography,
analyses the role of cinematographers, and proposes new ways of evaluating
their work.
Keywords
Introduction
The auteur theory needs to be re-evaluated. Directors are not the sole creative
instigators of their films. There are teams of artists; writers, cinematographers,
actors, editors, working within mainstream narrative cinema, and their creative
contribution needs to be recognised more widely. By taking up the cause of the
cinematographer I want to underline their key creative contribution, and begin to
suggest a way of analysing their specific influences as co-authors of their images.
In re-assessing the auteur theory and highlighting the historical neglect of the
cinematographers work I have taken what I believe to be one of the single most
iconic examples of an auteur film, Citizen Kane. I will look at Tolands contribution
to Kane, and argue that his creative contribution to the film goes far beyond his
recognised technical achievements.
I would like not to fall into the trap laid by the early auteur theorists who linked
authorship with quality. Auteur is often used as a signifier of quality direction,
however authorship is a definition of process, rather than a criteria of quality.
For the cinematographer there are significant modes of practice that effect their
authorial role, which I would like to briefly outline.
There are a number of factors, which affect the extent to which directors of
photography can express their creativity. These can be summarised as the
resources available to the cinematographer, the amount of preparatory time the
cameraperson has to plan his/her approach, and the creative relationship that he/
she has with the director of the project. If these three conditions are satisfactory
then the scope of the creative input of the cinematographer increases. Any
Resources
The first condition for creative work is the projects budget, ideally every resource
must be made available to the cinematographer to realise his/her vision for a
project, but this, of course, is not always practical or financially viable. Budgetary
restrictions may mean that a shot that was envisaged as a tracking shot may
not be able to be realised if the appropriate equipment is not available. The
construction of purpose-built sets is restricted to films with high budgets, and
is one of the reasons why Toland had so much control over the visualisation
of the films that he supervised, and partly why we can attribute a great deal of
responsibility of visual authorship to him. There are many examples of how
financial, and technical restrictions can affect the work of the cinematographer.
These practicalities do, of course, impact on creativity.
Preparatory Time
The third factor affecting the creative work of the cinematographer is his/her
working relationship with the director. The relationship between director and
director of photography (DoP) is a difficult one to define, and the balance of
creativity and collaboration between these roles is going to vary from partnership
to partnership, film to film. Often directors will work with the same DoP regularly,
for example; Powell and Cardiff, Bergman and Nykvist, Bertolucci and Storaro,
Wyler and Toland, Hitchcock and Burke, Coen and Deakins, Kubrick and Alcott,
Wong Kar Wai and Doyle, and Aronofsky and Libatique, because they come to a
mutual understanding about visualisation. DoPs are not however limited in their
creative expressions to only long-standing partnerships. Tolands most significant
work is Citizen Kane, and he famously only worked with Welles once.
In the latter case the preproduction task for the cinematographer is to refine
those ideas, sometimes correcting technical issues of continuity, creating more
clarity with time and space issues, and perhaps adding the odd suggestions as to
alternative approaches that remain in the predetermined style.
fixed ideas of compositional construction are effective, and at the other end of the
scale directors who we shall call blind. The blind director has no effective vision
of the compositional construction of the film. I should probably further qualify
the term blind. Blind is in no way used here as a derogatory term, it implies
only what it means, that blind directors have little or no visual sense. The term
also by no means indicates a bad director, a directors function is to interpret
a script by working with actors, and perhaps maintain a thematic and stylistic
unity across the work of the writer, cinematographer, sound designer, editor and
composer. A director can successfully and effectively perform these tasks but still
have little direct impact on the visualisation of the film. Some directors emphasis,
and talent, lies with working with actors and less with cinematography, it is the
influence of the auteur theory, and the dominance of the idea of the director as
the single author, that has lead to directors feeling inferior if they dont control the
visual elements of a film. It is this that has consequently led to the downgrading
of the camerapersons role to that of technical photographer in most film analysis.
At the opposite end of the scale to the fixed director, is the open director, who
is willing to collaborate, discuss and develop ideas with the cinematographer.
Again we can also apply the two characteristic ideas of visionary and blind
to open directors. The open-blind director perhaps has little idea, no idea
or no effective ideas on the visual construction of the film, and in this case the
cinematographer may even be left to visual the film himself/herself, this of course
gives Nilsens idea of maximum freedom to the cinematographer (Nilsen n.d.:
113), but their ideas may or may not be effective. The open-visionary director
is probably the best combination of characteristics for the cinematographer to
I would argue that Welles, in his collaboration with Toland on Kane, could be
characterised, in the light of my own research into Tolands creative contribution
to the film, as a blind-open director. As I evidence the majority of the visual ideas
in Kane were initiated by Toland. This in no way undermines Welles work with
the actors, and his overall marshalling of talent on the film. It just recognises
Tolands contribution beyond his generally accepted technical achievements with
deep focus, to the more creative aspects of composition, shot construction and
sequencing, which he clearly influenced. The stumbling block for this type of
analysis is, of course, the auteur theory.
Peter Wollen, in his book Signs and Meaning in the Cinema ([1969] 1972) gives a
good summation of the early development of the auteur theory.
Certainly the vagueness of the auteur theory is its main weakness. Apart from
stating that the director is the sole author of the film, it goes little further in
Perkins is also one of the first theorists to acknowledge that a collaborative film
can be a good one. Unlike Mitry, who seems to think that to say that a film is
produced by teamwork, implying thereby that the auteur is the team, is absurd
(Mitry 1963: 3a), or Cameron, who believes the only way other contributors can
have an effect is with a weak director (Cameron 1962: 32b). Perkins accepts the
notion of collaboration, and believes it can have a positive effect.
A number of authors have commented on the fact that the cinematographers role
has not been analysed, or indeed even recognised, as widely as other filmmakers,
for example, writers, producers, actors, and directors. In her study Semiotics and
Lighting: A Study of Six Modern French Cameramen, Russell, makes that very
observation.
Citizen Toland
Toland shot most of the films heralded by the post-war film critics as introducing a
new style of film-making, identified by the use of deep focus, wide angle lenses,
staging in depth, and long takes of continuous action. Bazin proclaims Citizen
Kane, The Long Voyage Home (Ford, 1940), The Little Foxes (Wyler, 1941), and
The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946) as the key films in this new style,
praising the directors; Welles, Ford and Wyler as great innovators, who developed
[Wyler] is the man who, toward the end of the 1930s, created a
new style. It is fitting to associate with Wyler the turning point
which--by error of judgement not corrected by the passing of
time--post-war critics attributed to Citizen Kane, when, in fact,
Welles, in this film, was still groping and being influenced by
Wyler. (Madsen 1973: 284)
This crediting of a new style, as Bordwell highlights, was attributed by most critics
to either Welles or Wyler.
What Bazin, Madsen and the majority of critics, obviously fail to realise is that
the same man shot all these films, and logic dictates that these directors did not
independently, or in some great conspiratorial gesture, begin using these new
techniques simultaneously. The one man who shot all these films has to be given
some of the credit, if not, it could be argued, sole credit for this innovation - Gregg
Toland.
Carringer makes almost the same point in his book on The Making of Citizen
Kane, which highlights the contributions of Mankiewicz, Ferguson, the production
designer, and Toland.
There are two major points of interest in reviewing Tolands work. One is the
reoccurrence of certain visual motifs, and the other is the development of his own
personal style, which had a hugely influential effect on directors such as Wyler
and Welles. He developed (or contributed to) a visual style which subsequently
inspired a generation of film-makers, although, as stated, Welles generally gets
the credit for that, as typified by this remark by Bazin about Kane:
And this typical review by William Johnson, from Orson Welles: Of Time and Loss,
in Film Quarterly 21 (1967).
Bazin and Johnson give full credit of the creativity and style within Kane to Welles,
and equate his authorship with that of a novelist, ignoring all other contributions,
presumably including Mankiewicz, Ferguson, Wise (editor) and, of course, Toland.
It is almost naive to believe that an inexperienced director could construct such a
sophisticated film without experienced and talented, creative support. Carringer is
much more balanced in his analysis.
Many of the creative technical innovations that have been written about in Kane,
and subsequently attributed to Welles, have their origins in the development of
the work of Toland. Amid the praise heaped on Welles it cannot be overstated
enough that Kane was his first film, and the default position still held by most
critics and theorist is summed up by Laura Mulvey in her 1992 discussion of the
film, in BFI Film Classics: Citizen Kane.
last shot of the film) is of him walking into the distance. Dead End (Wyler, 1937)
begins with a gleaming cityscape, then the camera descends into the tenement
area where the entire action of the film takes place, giving the idea that we are
looking at the lowest levels of society. At the end of the film the camera reverses
its action and rises back out of the dead-end street. This book-ending of the film
is, of course, similar to the opening and closing of Kane, where the camera raises
and descends to the No Trespassing sign. As Welles had never made a film, it
would appear more logical to say that Toland influenced the visual style of Kane,
and subsequently Welles visual style for the rest of his career.
Citizen Kane is often noted for its use of staging in depth, low camera angles,
and (what is often noted as an innovate touch of realism) ceilinged sets. Is
there evidence of these features in Tolands earlier work? Even the most cursory
glance at Tolands previous films will bring out dozens of images that work with
staging in depth, low angles and ceilinged sets. My own research has uncovered
Figure 6c: ...and then tracks into a Figure 6d: Berstein walks into the
close up when they talk about Kane. background, as the camera pans.
The projection room scene was actually the first scene shot for the film, and
again many critics credit Welles with this radical new lighting style (fig. 3), also
highlighted as part of Welles aesthetic. It is however clearly evident, as Wallace
(1976: 95) points out, in the earlier The Long Voyage Home, (Ford, 1940) (fig. 4),
and as I have discovered in the even earlier Dead End (fig. 5).
Kane is also noted for its long takes, often described as static shots, although
there is a lot of camera movement in Kane. An example of such a scene is when
the reporter Thompson (William Alland), is interviewing Kanes Business Manager,
Berstein (Everett Sloane). The camera starts with a long shot, and tracks in as
they discuss Rosebud. The camera pauses as Bernstein tells an intimate story
about his past, and then tracks in further when they discuss Kanes death. Finally,
Figure 7c: Gerald stands when he Figure 7d: The camera then pans to
realises Alan is still alive. the right as Kitty stands by the door.
as the tension and emotional intensity of the scene is released, Bernstein gets up
and walks to the back of the office. The camera pans slightly to the right with him,
so we end with a long shot. (Figs 6a-6d)
Whilst viewing The Dark Angel (Franklin, 1935) I saw exactly the same shot.
The camera begins on a long shot of Gerald Shannon (Herbert Marshall) on the
telephone. As the conversation continues, the camera tracks in and pauses. As
Gerald realises the dramatic significance of the information he is receiving the
camera tracks in again. When the telephone conversation finishes, the camera
releases the tension by panning slightly to the right into a long shot of Kitty Vane
(Merle Oberon) entering the room, in the same shot (figs 7a-7d).
The two shots are the same. The visual pattern is identical. More significantly the
technique is used in both instances for the same storytelling purpose, to create a
growing intimacy, then a release of tension. Toland was experimenting with long
Figure 9a: Francey tells Baby Face Figure 9b: ... the truth in Dead End.
Martin...
takes of continuous action even in his first film as chief photographer Palmy Days
(Sutherland, 1931).
(figs. 10a-10b). He reveals his true intentions, and perhaps love, as he steps into
the light.
Although often cited for his technical contribution to Kane, I have found little
detailed analysis of Tolands career or work. Both Carringer and Wallace write
excellent in-depth studies of Toland, but their scope is limited mainly to those
new style films of the late 1930s, early 1940s. I have looked at around 62% of
Tolands films, from 1931 to his last Enchantment (Reis, 1948), and have identified
a number of visual approaches Toland uses for storytelling, to give meaning to
his images. His technical competence, clearly identifiable style, and creation of
meaning, satisfies all three of Sarris criteria for an auteur (1962: 42a-43b).
My aim is not to suggest the Toland is a single author, and should replace
Welles as the auteur of Citizen Kane. My point is that we should recognise the
contribution that cinematographers make to the films that they shoot, which
means re-evaluating our ideas of authorship. Film is a collaborative medium. We
can only achieve this by attempting to analyse the separate contributions made to
a film by all the creative collaborators involved in its making.
In terms of analysing cinematography Nilsen (n.d.: 20), Mitry (1963: 29), and
Deleuze (1983: 5), all agree that the smallest, single element, and the most
fundamental unit of a film that should be discussed, is the shot, especially in
In his book Figures Traced in Light, Bordwell points out that the audiences
understanding of what we call plot comes through the patterned use of the
mediums techniques. Without performance and framing, lens length and lighting,
composition and cutting, dialogue and music, we could not grasp the world of
the story (Bordwell, 2005: 32). Bordwell does divide style, which he says is
the texture of the film, into four functions; denotation, expressive, symbolic and
decorative. The latter obviously includes a purely aesthetic motivation, and to
a certain extent is the least interesting. Denotation is the literal representation
of subject matter, and action. Expressive function communicates on a more
emotional level, moods and feelings. Finally, the symbolic function of style can be
used to represent meaning in a more abstract, but no less direct, way.
Nilsen compares the long shot with the view of an outside observer, and the
progression to medium shots and close-ups taking the viewpoint into the scene
(Nilsen, n.d.: 37). To a certain extent this equates the long shot to the theatrical
experience of sitting in an auditorium, and the scene is in a separate space,
beyond the proscenium arch. The medium shot and the close-up could be
said to take us onto the stage, into the space of the action. However, I dont
necessarily agreed with this. Granted, there is often an objective quality to
Individual shots can be analysed in terms of their function, with the following
compositional concepts; informational, emotional, thematic.
Informational Aspect
This relates to Bordwells initial function of denotation, but implies more meaning
rather than just the mechanical reproduction of an object on film. It would also
relate to Deleuzes perception-image, but would include all aspects of narrative
information contained in the shot. This many include the physical information;
setting, location, actions, etc., but also information relating to the narrative, which
may be partly informed by the shots placement in the editing composition.
Emotional Aspect
This aspect relates more to the expressionistic qualities of the shot. Its mood,
character and tone. It does not equate to the emotional states of the characters
that may be in the shot, that would relate more to the informational aspect: that
character is sad, this character is happy. The emotional quality of the composition
maybe unrelated, or in contrast, to the emotions of the characters in the narrative.
The shot may embody a sense of foreboding by its compositional aspects,
whereas the characters may be unaware of this sense. This would relate to
Bordwells idea of an expressive function, and is evident in Tolands use of the
three stage tracking shot (figs. 6-7), as discussed.
Thematic Aspect
Of course, there are films that just use the camera to record the action, Nilsens
notion of the passive reproductional, as there are lighting plans that just
illuminate what needs to be seen, but both the camera and the light can be used
to add layers of meaning, significance, and relevant symbolism to the image. This
should be the purpose of great cinematography, or motion picture photography,
the writing of a narrative with movement and light.
There is no set formula for how to shoot a scene, in the same way that there is no
formula for writing a good story. Many commentators on story structure mistake
it for a recipe for formulaic narratives. Story structure is akin to ideas of pictorial
composition, it guides notions of form, not content. The approach depends on
what commentary the cinematographer needs to add to a scene, or what aspects
of the narrative, character development or thematic concepts, they want to
represent. Once this has been decided upon, then strategies of expressing these
There are, of course, strategies that have been discovered and sometimes
turned into conventions for individual shots and editing compositions, for example,
a low camera angle makes a subject powerful or dominant, and conversely a
high camera angle can have the opposite effect. The practice of shot-reverse-
shot, or shooting static master shots, two-shots and then singles can often be
categorised as the passive reproductional. These approaches are the fixing
of action that happens in front of the lens onto the recording medium, a purely
mechanical process often devoid of any creativity. Compositional aspects from
drawing, painting, and photography can all apply to a motion picture frame, the
elements that add to the challenge of the cinematographer are aspects of time.
The change that occurs within a shot, as we have seen with Tolands three stage
tracking shot, the mood and thematic idea within the shot can develop as the shot
progresses. The other time elements, including that fact that the duration that
the viewer can observe the image is finite, and the notion of editing composition,
the fact that the single shot will not be viewed in isolation, are all vital. Individual
shots are built into sequences, which must have a coherent meaning, or cohesive
style.
Conclusion
The weakness of the early auteur critics is that they fixate on the director as the
single creative author of a film. Clearly, as some others point out, film-making is
a collaborative process, and it is often difficult to attribute the source of an idea,
or concept, to one individual. Is it the writer, who is totally ignored by the early
theorists, probably due to Truffauts bias? Is it the director, the DoP, the designer,
the actor, or the editor? Or is it, as seems more obvious, a combination of
influences? What makes the theory of authorship difficult is that this combination
of influences alters from crew to crew, team to team, film to film. Sometimes it is
reasonable to suggest one individual has much more influence over a project than
any of the others working on it, but it is the team that is important. Welles made
films after Kane, with less skilled collaborators, which resulted in lesser films: The
Lady From Shanghai (1948), Confidential Report (1955). The inconsistencies
in the films of other so-called auteurs can probably also be accounted for by the
same criteria, that is the experience and skill of their collaborators.
I propose a new pattern of attributing authorship for films that should take into
account the collaborative nature of the process, and identify the key contributions
made to individual films. As in figure 11, I believe the central hub of the
collaboration to be between the writer, director, cinematographer, and editor. I
have put the director at the centre of this hub, as he/she will work closely with the
other three, whereas the three may not even meet, as they theoretically work on
different stages of the production of a film. Beyond this we must also take into
Perhaps in the future films should be referenced in terms of all of their authors, for
example, Citizen Kane (Mankiewicz, Toland, Welles, Wise, 1941), or at the very
least, Citizen Kane (Welles et al., 1941).
Bibliography
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University of California Press.
Bazin, Andr (1997) Bazin at Work: Major Essays & Reviews from the Forties &
Fifties. Translated by Alain Piette and Bert Cardullo. USA: Routledge.
Bordwell, David (1997) On The History of Film Style. USA: Harvard University
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Bordwell, David (2005) Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging. USA:
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Cameron, Ian (1962) Films, Directors and Critics. In: Barry Keith Grant, ed. 2008.
Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader. UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Carringer, Robert L. (1982) Orson Welles and Gregg Toland: Their Collaboration
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Carringer, Robert L. (1985) The Making of Citizen Kane. UK: John Murray
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Deleuze, Gilles (1983) Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Translation by Hugh
Tomlinson and Robert Galeta, 1985. UK: The Athlone Press.
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their Medium. In: Michael Leitch and Harry N. Abrams, eds., 2003. Making
Pictures: A Century of European Cinematography. USA: Abrams.
Johnson, William (1967) Orson Welles: Of Time and Loss. In: Ronald Gottesman,
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Kael, Pauline (1971) The Citizen Kane Book. UK: Bantam Books.
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Author Biography
Philip Cowan teaches at Newport Film School, within Newport University, South
Wales. He also works as a freelance cinematographer, and has shot over 50
productions, including; drama, documentary, performance, and animation projects,
working for the BBC, ITV, C4, S4C, and numerous independent companies. The
films that he has shot have collected twenty international Best Short Film awards
at festivals worldwide, including two BAFTA Cymru awards. He has also taught
film-making at various institutions in Europe, India and Africa. He is currently
undertaking a Ph.D on cinematography at Manchester Metropolitan University.