John Alcott, the Oscar-winning cinematographer best known for his
collaboration with director
Stanley Kubrick, was born in
1931, in Isleworth, England, the son of movie executive
Arthur Alcott, who would become the
production controller at Gainsborough Studios during the 1940s.
Alcott began his film career as a clapper boy, the lowest member of a
camera crew. By the early 1960s he had worked his way up to focus
puller, the #3 position on a camera crew after the lighting cameraman
and camera operator. As a focus puller Alcott was responsible for
measuring the distances between the camera and the subject being shot,
which is critical during traveling shots, and more vitally, he was
tasked with adjusting the lens when the camera is following a subject.
By the
mid-'60s Alcott was a member of the camera team of master
cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth,
working on Kubrick's
2001 - Odyssee im Weltraum (1968).
When Unsworth had to leave the project during its two-year-long shoot
to meet other commitments, Alcott was elevated to lighting cameraman by
Kubrick. Thus began a collaboration that would reach its zenith a
decade later with
Barry Lyndon (1975). His association
with Kubrick propelled him to the top of his craft, in terms of both
style and in pushing the technical aspects of the discipline.
Alcott preferred lighting that appeared natural and did not draw
attention to itself. His ideas meshed perfectly with those of Kubrick,
and the two developed their ideas about "natural" lighting in two
landmark films,
Uhrwerk Orange (1971) and
"Barry Lyndon", which incorporated scenes shot entirely by candlelight.
The idea of using candlelight solely for illumination was discussed by
Alcott and Kubrick after the wrap of "2001" for Kubrick's planned film
about the life of Napoleon, but there wasn't a fast-enough lens in
existence then.
After a search, Kubrick located three unique 50mm f/0.7 still-camera
camera lenses designed by the Zeiss Corporation for use by NASA in its
Apollo moon-landing program in order to shoot still pictures in the low
light levels of outer space. The lens was 2 f stops faster than the
fastest movie camera lens made at the time.
Kubrick tasked Cinema Products Corp. to adapt a standard 35mm
non-reflexed Mitchell BNC movie camera so that the camera could accept
the lens. The camera was outfitted with a side viewfinder from one of
the old Technicolor three-strip cameras that used mirrors rather than
prisms (like a modern camera) to show what it "sees", the mirrors
providing a much brighter image than did a prism-based single-lens
reflex system, which could not obtain enough light to register an
image. There was no real problem with parallax, as the viewfinder was
mounted close to the lens.
Cinema Products also created two special lenses by mating a 70mm
projection lens with the remaining 0.7 Zeiss 50mm lenses. This battery
of three lenses allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot the indoor scenes
using nothing but candlelight. It was a formidable task, as the lenses
could not be focused by eye. Metal shields also had to be installed
above the sets, which were filmed in actual castles and manor houses in
Ireland and England, to keep the heat and smoke from the candles from
damaging the ceilings. Fortitously, the shields also reflected the
candlelight back into the scene (this approach was later used
successfully by lighting cameraman
Alwin H. Küchler on the western
Das Reich und die Herrlichkeit (2000), which shot its saloon
interiors in very low light). The candles had to be constantly replaced
to keep continuity during the scenes, and shooting was hampered by the
fact that many of the manor houses were open to the public and the crew
had to wait until the intervals between tours to film a scene.
Alcott told "American Cinematographer" in a December 1975 interview
that the ultra-fast lens had no depth of field at all. This
necessitated the scaling of the lens by doing hand tests. Alcott's
focus puller, Douglas Milsome (who would
succeed him as Kubrick's cinematographer), used a closed-circuit video
camera at a 90-degree angle to the film camera to keep track of the
distances to maintain focus. A grid was placed over the TV screen and,
by taping the various actors' positions in the set, the distances could
be transferred to the TV grid to allow the actors a limited scope of
movement during the scene, while keeping in focus.
Alcott won an Academy Award for his work on "Barry Lyndon", which is
considered one of the most visually beautiful movies ever made. (Three
of Alcott's movies were ranked in the top 20 of "Best Shot" movies in
the period after 1950-97 by the American Society of Cinematographers:
"2001" at #3, "Barry Lyndon" at #16, and "A Clockwork Orange", for
which he won the British Academy Award, at #19.) Alcott realized
Kubrick's vision by evoking the paintings of Corot, Gainsborough, and
Watteau, creating gorgeous tableaux. It was the aesthetic opposite of
the cubism evoked by "A Clockwork Orange",
While shooting what would turn out to be his last film for Kubrick,
Shining (1980), Alcott lit the
hotel sets with "practicals" (sources of lighting that are visible on
screen as part of the set, such as lighting fixtures). As on "Barry
Lyndon", Alcott supplemented the lighting with illumination coming into
the set from outside the windows, though the "windows" on "The Shining"
were part of a set. The high temperatures (110 degrees Fahrenheit)
caused by the 700,000 watts of illumination outside the set's "windows"
Alcott used to create the high white effect favored by Kubrick caused
the set to burn down.
Alcott, who shot films and TV commercials for other directors in the
UK, moved to the US in 1981 in order to obtain more steady work than
was possible in the ailing British film industry. His non-Kubrick
projects as a cinematographer included three films with director
Stuart Cooper and two with
Roger Spottiswoode. Alcott could not
shoot Kubrick's
Full Metal Jacket (1987), which
commenced shooting in 1985 and -- like any Kubrick shoot -- would
involved a substantial commitment of time, as Alcott was committed to
other projects (Kubrick hired Douglas Milsome, who had been Alcott's
focus puller on "Barry Lyndon" and "The Shining", to shoot "Jacket").
His non-Kubrick oeuvre was eccentric, and included the Canadian slasher
film
Blutiger Valentinstag (1981),
but he was able to bring his outstanding visual quality to such movies
as
Fort Apache (The Bronx) (1981),
Beastmaster - Der Befreier (1982),
Unter Feuer (1983) and
Hugh Hudson's
Greystoke - Die Legende von Tarzan, Herr der Affen (1984).
Alcott suffered a massive heart attack and died on July 28, 1986, in
Cannes, France. At the time of his death he was considered one of the
film industry's great artist-technicians, someone who through his
ability to push back the boundaries of what was technically possible,
linked technology to aesthetic needs and contributed to the development
of cinema as an art form. His last film,
No Way Out - Es gibt kein Zurück (1987), was dedicated to
his memory. The British Society of Cinematographers named one of its
awards the "BSC John Alcott ARRI Award" in his honor to commemorate his
role as a lighting cameraman in the development of film as an art form.
