Jack Cardiff: An Appreciation by Ian Christie

Jack Cardiff's career has covered the whole span of sound cinema.

Born into a theatrical family, he was a camera assistant at Denham when chosen to be one of Technicolor's first trainees in 1936. For the next ten years he worked on many varied assignments, before Michael Powell launched his career as a lighting cameraman with A Matter of Life and Death in 1946, followed by the atmospheric magic of Black Narcissus, which won him an Academy Award, and delirious fantasy of The Red Shoes.

Equally versatile in the studio and on location, he worked with a dazzling array of directors and stars - Hitchcock, Huston, Vidor; Ava Gardner, Bogart, Monroe, Sophia Loren - before achieving recognition as a director with Sons and Lovers in 1960.

In the 1980s, he lent distinction to action vehicles for Schwarzenegger and Stallone; and in 1996 published a fascinating memoir, Magic Hour.

In early 2001, he was honoured with an Academy Award for his lifetime contribution to the art of cinematography.

Ian Christie

Professor of Film and Media History

Birkbeck College, University of London