Kirjailijakuva

Tekijän teokset

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

There is no Common Knowledge data for this author yet. You can help.

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

http://shawjonathan.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/martha-ansaras-shadowcatchers/

The subtitle might lead you to expect a dry narrative of technological change with perhaps some discussion of industrial issues, economics and politics thrown in. The dramatic cover image suggests something else.

Fortunately, the image is more truthful. There is plenty of text. There are essays on the history of movie making in Australia (based on extensive interviews as well as documentary records), biographies of a number of significant figures, eloquent quotes from some of the key players. But this is actually a gorgeous, exuberant picture book. In her introduction, Martha Ansara, herself no mean cinematographer, says that the photographs were generally chosen not because of the 'importance' of their subjects but 'because of the expressiveness of the image itself'. If this meant that some highly acclaimed cinematographers didn't make the cut, I guess she was prepared to live with the fallout. From my perspective, the decision has paid off brilliantly: page after page, image after image, the book is a delight.

From the dedication page, with its list of 20 Australian cameramen who 'lost their lives catching shadows', presumably covering conflict, it was a revelation and an education for me. There's an image from 1906 of the Salvation Army Limelight Department Staff, complete with slouch hats. There's a naked ABC film crew, backs discreetly to the camera, shooting on a nudist colony in 1971. Another news crew wades, water up to their armpits, through a Papua New Guinea swamp in 1974.

I was most taken by the images from film shoots – Withnail and I (DOP Peter Hannan) or Driving Miss Daisy (DOP Peter Jannes), say – where the actor in full character exists in a parallel world with the person focused on the task of making the image work. Or the ones from movies like The Tale of Ruby Rose (DOP Steve Mason) where the landscape was such a powerful presence, and here we see the crew, or perhaps just the director and DOP, going about the business of capturing it. The effect is not so much to demystify the magic of the movies as to extend it.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
shawjonathan | Jun 16, 2012 |

Tilastot

Teokset
4
Jäseniä
14
Suosituimmuussija
#739,559
Arvio (tähdet)
5.0
Kirja-arvosteluja
1
ISBN:t
3