Professional life

With the death of cinematographer Romain Winding on Thursday 20^th July 2023, the AFC has lost one of its most lovable members. He passed away at the age of 71 at his house in Chambonas (Ardèche, France). Over the course of nearly 30 years, Romain shot, with elegance, sensitivity and simplicity, around sixty feature films and made-for-television movies. Here, we retrace his steps.

We were deeply saddened to learn of the death of cinematographer Romain Winding, AFC, on 20 July 2023 at the age of 71, following a long battle with illness. He passed away in his home in the Ardèche where he had been living for several years. We will remember him as a delicate, discreet, precise and elegant person whose talent shone in over sixty feature films and made-for-TV movies that he shot.

Cinematographer Jimmy Glasberg, AFC, passed on 13 January 2023, aged 83. He was the direct descendant of the pioneering "camera men" who weren’t yet called "directors of photography". Jimmy Glasberg, in both his thinking and his work, constantly questioned what it means to film and what he called "the filial passage from a still image to a moving image." He left behind a filmography that is rich in both its diversity and its ideological commitments.

In mid-June, Jimmy Glasberg and I arranged to meet at his house in the south of France "so I can tell you two or three things". I stayed an entire day…

"OOF… I’m at the end of my rope… Writing is such an effort for me… I had my wife reread it, and she said I talk too much about myself and not enough about technique… Perhaps she’s right… What do you think? You can suggest any changes you see fit and we’ll talk about it…" (Jimmy)
Those were very exactly the words that Jimmy Glasberg wrote to me in the email he sent to me along with his biography… I had asked him to tell me two or three things about himself because a friend wanted to feature certain cinematographers at the Rencontres Photographiques in Arles where a show had already been organized featuring the work of his father, a photographer. This event never took place and this train - like so many others -remained in the station, but Jimmy’s words remained and I didn’t need to "change" a single one. (Gilles Porte, AFC)

Writing about Jimmy Glasberg could take the form of a book given the extent to which he experimented and searched. More modestly, I limited myself to films that seemed to mark two distinct steps in his career: the short films on Sam & Dave and Otis Redding, and the feature film Le Lien de parenté which I shot alongside him as a cameraman.

I began in this profession as a spark, and then as an assistant cameraman for television reporting - which we didn’t yet call documentaries. Because these films were shot in 16 mm film, an assistant, who often was also a spark, had to load the film magazines. That was how, through my friend Jean-Yves Escoffier, I began to work for Jimmy Glasberg.

Following the news of Jimmy Glasberg’s death, the AFC received many notes of sympathy, some long and some short. Here are two of them, written by Stéphane Cami, AFC, and Étienne Fauduet, AFC

The cinematographers of the AFC were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of their colleague and friend Alex Lamarque, after a long battle with illness that ended on 15 September 2022, aged 58. He was a talented director of photography, and everyone who worked alongside him will remember him as warm, curious, and approachable, very elegant in his mannerisms and a very beautiful person.

It is with great sadness, that we announce the passing of Jean-Marie Lavalou (9 March 1946 - 15 July 2022) – co-creator of the world’s first remote control camera system for use in the motion picture industry.

An actor, and then later on an activist producer and director, Jacques Perrin’s career as a cinematographer did not follow the beaten path. Although born into the profession, he forged an original and demanding path for himself, and confronted the most improbable challenges and stakes with audacity and tenacity, believing that his only talent was “knowing how to bring together talented people”. Those who participated in his films will remember, amongst his other qualities, his kindness, his courage, his obstinacy, his confidence, and the respect he showed them.

As was the case for many of us, Jacques Perrin’s death deeply affected me. He’s one of those people you believe are immortal given the space they take up in your life and the guidance they provide you. He helped me trace my own path starting with Winged Migration.

All of us have a fairy godfather or godmother who brought us into the tight-knit world of the cinema. Meeting Jacques Perrin was decisive for me, and he introduced me to many other people. He was looking for a camera assistant to work with Luciano Tovoli on the first and only film by Marc Grünbaum that he produced, Adoption. The year was 1979, I was finally about to work on an ambitious feature film with a talented cinematographer.

As we were shooting Winged Migration, we were desperately looking for the right solution to shoot the particular flight patterns of cranes, who make huge detours around thermal currents. I had suggested we use an Aaton A-Minima 16mm camera to make the work easier for the cameraman who was strapped into the harness of a paraglider. Jacques Perrin’s response was sharp: “Dominique, we are shooting a cinema film in 35mm.”

“Philippe, do you think we could go even further?” I heard that question so many times during the six years I worked on Oceans with Jacques Perrin. I was the technical supervisor and one of the 24 directors of photography for this film.

Jacques,
It is hard to summarize thirty-five years of conversations in just a few lines. What I know is that you had a special relationship with each of us; that was your strength. You were able to raise an army of filmmakers to conquer your follies, you were able to make us believe that nothing was as important as the cinema and that only poetry gave meaning to life.

Jacques, you’ve gone and joined your partner and our mutual friend Luc Drion, who had left us much too soon, and I am sure that both of you will have impassioned discussions while you watch us muddling about during these difficult times for cinema, for politics, and for the future of planet Earth.

Cinema sometimes involves deep relationships and brutal ruptures. I met Jean-Jacques Beineix in 1980 while shooting Diva, and we began a true friendship that lasted several years, but our diverging professional paths unfortunately did it in, as is often the case in our profession.