Professional life

For over a year, following the initiative of some of our members, we have been meeting in the AFC’s offices to discuss our profession from a female perspective. On September 6^th of this year, we officially founded the “Women Behind the Camera” Collective.

Pierre Lhomme’s career has traversed nearly fifty years of French cinema, displaying the same ease and rigorousness with directors such as Alain Cavalier, Chris Marker, Jean Eustache, James Ivory, Joris Ivens, René Féret, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Margurite Duras, Patrice Chéreau, Robert Bresson, Bruno Nuytten, and others. These richly-diverse collaborations were all nourished by an attentive and uninterrupted observation of natural lighting in all of its forms: “I train my eye everywhere, in the street, in the cinema. I am very curious about gazes, ambiences, climates. Reality is a prodigious source of inspiration.” (P.L.)

In 1980 when I went to France to shoot my first feature there, Quartet, I did not bring along my English cameraman, Walter Lassally. He and I had made five films together, but perhaps he had another job. Humbert Balsan, one of the producers of Quartet, recommended Pierre Lhomme.

We were saddened to learn of the news of the death of our colleague Bruno de Keyzer, BSC, which occurred on Tuesday, 25 June 2019 at Villerville (Calvados - France), in his seventieth year of life. Lively, charming and talented, during his thirty-five-year-long career in France and the UK, he worked with directors such as Mark Peploe, Arturo Ripstein, Jerry Schatzberg and Bertrand Tavernier, for whom he shot six films.

Like the cat Zgougou, mascot immortalized by the logo of Ciné-Tamaris, Agnès Varda had several lives – photographer, filmmaker, documentarian, visual artist –, constantly blurring the lines between fiction and documentary, reality and imaginary, poetry and activism, a gaze focused on others and introspection.

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.