In memory of

The poster of the Cannes Film Festival 2019 is sublime. It is a wonderful tribute that summarizes everything about Agnès Varda. Nothing stops Agnès Varda from shooting a take, nothing is impossible, her small size will not stop her from reaching the high viewfinder of her camera. The image comes from the shooting of her first feature, La Pointe courte, shot at Sète in 1954 while she was the photographer of Jean Vilar’s TNP.

Shooting began in May 1990.
Patrick Blossier is the cinematographer.
He shot Vagabond.
He called me in June.
The film Evocation of a Vocation or Jacquot (title still undetermined) has been put on hold.

Jean-Pierre Beauviala’s journey will come to an end at the cemetery of Mens-en-Trièves (Isère) on Tuesday, 16 April 2019 at 14:30.

Blue umbrellas, blue flowers...

Although not well-known by audiences, filmmaker Patrick Grandperret, who passed away at Saint-Maur-des-Fossé on Saturday, 9 March at the age of 72, seduced generation of cinephiles with his films, which were full of freedom, poetry and tenderness, but also of surprising audaciousness. Borne by the fluidity of his camera style and the energy of his actors, his work, which, although it was not prolific was recognized by his peers, cut across the trends and changes in cinema and television for nearly four decades.

I met Patrick fifty-six years ago and he is one of the few people that I have never had the slightest disagreement with over such a long period of time. A friendship, an exceptional fraternity through our shared passions: motorcycles and cinema.

Patrick, Pierre and Jérôme reunited. Patrick and Pierre left together last weekend, Jérôme has already been gone for ten years. Patrick Grandperret, Pierre Chevalier and Jérôme Minet, the three producers of Beau travail, by Claire Denis, are no longer with us.

Patrick took his leave of us last Saturday, surrounded by his family and his many friends. At the discreet cemetery of Saint-Maur, the music of Bashung and Brassens accompanied the eulogies of those who loved him.

Ross Lowell died on 15 February 2019 at the age of 92. He was the inventor of the lighting system that bears his name, the Lowel-Light, and of the famous “gaffer tape,” an accessory that has become as commonplace as it is indispensable.

Roger Cuvillier had revolutionized the professional cinematography lens by releasing a variable-focus lens in 1956, the Pan Cinor, manufactured in Dijon in the SOM Berthiot factories. This was a 38.5-154mm lens at f/3.8, which was designed according to the principles of optical compensation and which followed a series of small zoom lenses designed in the early 50s for amateur 8 and 16mm formats.

Witold Sobociński, PSC, died on 19 November 2018, just a few days after having been honoured by a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Festival EnergaCamerimage at Bydgoszcz in Poland. Jazzman, cinematographer, and pedagogue, he left his mark on Polish cinematography through his collaborations with directors Jerzy Skolimowski, Andrzej Wajda, Kryzystof Zanussi, Wojciech Has, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Roman Polański, etc.

Cinematographer of Roger Corman, Richard Lester, François Truffaut, and John Schlesinger in the 1960s, before becoming a director himself, Nicolas Roeg died on 23 November 2018, aged 90.

We were saddened to learn of the death of Cinematographer Edmond Richard, AFC, which occurred in Paris on 5 June 2018 at the age of 91. Having shot over fifty films, Edmond Richard shared the visual universes of directors as varied as Marcel Carné, René Clément, Henri Verneuil, Jean Girault, Guy Casaril, Sébastien Japrisot, Robert Hossein, Gérad Pirès, and Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel and Jean-Pierre Mocky, whose faithful partner he was on over twenty films.

Although it was a bit cliché, he was known as Vermeer because he is Dutch or as Magic Müller because his lighting had the magic of the Master of Delft.

Recognized for his work on films directed by Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, and Lars von Trier, inter alia, in which the technical aspect was dissimulated behind the rhythm and grace of his camera movements and the expressive use he made of natural light and colour, Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller, NSC, passed away in Amsterdam on Tuesday, 3 July 2018, at the age of seventy-eight. Agnès Godard, AFC, who was his assistant on Paris, Texas, eulogizes below.

During Claude Lanzemann’s funeral at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris on Thursday, 12 July 2018, Caroline Champetier, AFC, who worked alongside him, was one of the eulogizers and she spoke the following words.

With the death of director and producer Idrissa Ouedraogo on Sunday, 18 February 2018, aged 64, Burkinabe and African cinema lost one of its most striking figures. During his long and rich career he directed over thirty films, including ten feature-length motion pictures, οf which Tilaï, awarded at Cannes in 1990 is especially memorable, as is the softness of Matthias Kälin’s images on Yaaba, shot in 1988. Jean-Paul Meurisse, one of the cinematographers who worked with him, pays tribute below.

It is with deep sadness that the AFC cinematographers share the news of the passing away of their friend and colleague Jean-Jacques Bouhon, AFC, on Wednesday, 27 September 2017 following a serious illness, at the age of 70. Besides his cinematographic work – notable examples of which are Coline Serreau’s Three Men and a Cradle, Thomas Gilou’s La Vérité si je mens, Patrick Bouchitey’s Lune froide, and Michel Sibra’s La Soule –, and his great human qualities, Jean-Jacques was an active member of our association, of the Image department of La fémis film school, and of the Superior Technical Commission (CST).

With the death of Michael Ballhaus, ASC, which occurred in Berlin on Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at the age of 81, cinematography has lost one of its most talented artisans. Director of Photography for Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Mike Nichols, amongst others, he constantly experimented during his forty-year-long career, filming each of his movies in a style that was often highly innovative. Whoever has seen The Marriage of Maria Braun will have been impressed by his impressive risk-taking, which was one of the great cinematographer’s hallmarks.