A reply to an elderly thread - reading a book of Gore Vidal
essays and he talks about how the Warner Bros. restrictions
on electrical access resulted in what was later judged the
"style" of the studio's pictures. Vidal was a studio writer
for several years and lends a vote to the cost-cutting
argument.
Best, JAA
----- Original Message -----
From:
chrisaschneider@earthlink.net
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 8:45 PM
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Musuraca's and Tourneur's
Lighting For "Out of the Past"
Mark wrote:
> He found documentation (memos,
> budgets, etc) to back up that the
> lighting style [of "Out of the Past"]
> was due to cost-cutting on the sets.
Doherty wrote:
> it was just a way of making films
> economically
It was in one of his essays, I believe, that W.H.
Auden gave, as an example of genius, composer Giacomo Rossini
spilling ink on a portion of his score's manuscript, his
noticing that the ink landed on a good place for a note, and
then his keeping the note in that spot for the final
score.
Whether or not the lighting of "Out of the Past"
was a result of economics -- although I, myself, would prefer
to speak of the quite conscious influence of the Val Lewton
unit at R.K.O. and their approach toward atmospherics -- my
claim would be that the important factors are (2) what was
done in the final movie, and (2) the import of those choices
in the film that we view today.
Both director Tourneur and cinematographer
Nicholas Musurara had worked together under Lewton, of course
-- "The Cat People" (1942).
Here, by the way, is a good article on
Tourneur:
http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/7-8-2002/tourneur2.htm
Chris
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
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