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Visions of Light

Good to see this again even if it is an unofficial “remastering” of the original. Visions of Light is a feature-length documentary about the art of cinematography as practiced in (mostly) American cinema. The film was made by Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels for the American Film Institute in 1992, and is unique in being related solely through the words of cinematographers; there are no actor-narrators, actors, directors, academics or celebrities blathering about “iconic” moments. The format is very simple and direct: short clips from feature films showing the evolution of photographic styles and techniques from the silent era to the present, with each clip being commented on and contextualised by the cinematographers. Each clip includes an on-screen caption listing the title of the film, the director and the cinematographer. Most of the interviewees are Americans but there are a few notable Europeans such as Néstor Almendros, Sven Nykvist and Vittorio Storario.

The version of the film archived here is an unofficial “remastering” which has upgraded the original to high definition. I haven’t seen Visions of Light since it was broadcast on TV in the 1990s so my memory may be faulty but I think the incorporation of some of the interviews as picture-in-picture overlays may be a new addition. While it’s good to see high-quality extracts the real attraction for me is the interviews. The people who photograph feature films are essential to the film-making process yet they’re seldom given the opportunity to talk about their work outside extras on hard-format releases. And now that the masses have stopped buying films on disc the opportunities for this kind of discussion are limited once again. The interview with Conrad Hall was one I found especially revelatory for his discussion of breaking the studio rules when filming Cool Hand Luke in 1967. This was the first major Hollywood film to show sunlight flaring into the camera lens, an effect that would have had the shot rejected in the days when studios policed each production with great rigour. Once Hall had got away with this everyone started doing it, with the result that American film and TV after 1967 is filled with lens flares. Cinematography, in other words, creates and follows trends as much as other film-making techniques.

Ninety minutes is too short a time to cover a hundred years of cinematic history in any depth. It would have been better for the AFI to produce a multi-part TV series but I doubt there would have been the audience for such a thing. Aside from actors and the occasional high-profile director most film-viewers are happy to remain ignorant about the identities of the people who make the films they watch. Visions of Light was obviously edited down from a great deal of interview footage which makes me wonder now what happened to the material that didn’t make the final cut. Will we ever get to see it?

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Vilmos Zsigmond, 1930–2016

Tadami Yamada’s weird covers

Earlier this year when I wrote about Tadami Yamada’s illustrations for William Hope Hodgson I mentioned the existence of books by other authors that were published along with the Hodgson as part of a series. Kokusho Kankōkai published ten of these books from 1976 to 1977, most of them being collections of short horror fiction by European and American authors, with the series as a whole being referred to as the “Dracula” editions. Yamada painted the covers and provided interior illustrations for eight of the books, including, as I suspected earlier, a Lovecraft collection. I was hoping I might be able to find copies of his interiors for the Lovecraft but so far nothing has turned up, Yamada’s web pages only featuring illustrations from the Hodgson and Henry S. Whitehead collections. Searching elsewhere is complicated by a number of factors such as the age of the books, their being Japanese publications, and the sheer quantity of Lovecraft-related material to sift through.

Yamada says that his illustrations weren’t appreciated by readers who were expecting more typical horror imagery. This doesn’t surprise me given the Surrealist tenor of his work as a whole. The Hodgson illustrations are relatively orthodox but many of his other book illustrations from this period are collages that resemble the simpler things Max Ernst was doing in his collage novels. Collage is also evident on the “Dracula” covers, together with decalcomania, another Surrealist technique visible in the Hodgson illustrations. These books are a minor diversion in Yamada’s wide-ranging career but, as is often the case with Asian publications, none of them are currently listed at ISFDB. I’d still like to see his Lovecraft illustrations, if only to assuage my curiosity.

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Weekend links 823

“NASA’s Hubble revisits Crab Nebula to track 25 years of expansion.“

• Snakes and Ladders is a video adaptation of the one-off Moon and Serpent performance presented by Alan Moore and Tim Perkins at Conway Hall, London, in 1999. With visual samples from Eddie Campbell’s comic-strip adaptation of the audio recording, plus my artwork from the CD release. (Thanks to Francis for the tip!)

• The spring catalogue of lots for the After Dark: Gay Art and Culture online auction. Homoerotic art, photos, historic porn, etc.

• New music: State Of Matter by Dobrawa Czocher; Plague Dogs by The Heartwood Institute.

• “Why we made a film about Mark Fisher called We Are Making A Film About Mark Fisher.”

• At Colossal: “Ambiguity reigns in Olaf Hajek’s mysterious illustrations”.

• At Public Domain Review: Monet’s early caricatures (ca. late 1850s).

• At the BFI: George Orwell, film critic.

• The Strange World of…Ladytron.

• The Plague (1967) by Scott Walker | A Plague Of Angels (2007) by Earth | The Plague (2014) by Cosmic Ground

RS Sherriffs’ Rubáiyát

You can’t really say there are always more Rubáiyáts—the Fitzgerald translation isn’t as popular today as it was a century ago—but there are many illustrated editions even though the poem makes for a slim volume when not bulked out by variant translations. The popularity of the text when combined with the ease of imitating Edward Fitzgerald’s quatrains led to the publication of many novelty versions—The Rubáiyát of a Persian Kitten, The Rubáiyát of a Motor Car, The Rubáiyát of a Bachelor, and so on—all of which came with their own illustrations.

The 1947 edition illustrated by Scottish artist Robert Stewart Sherriffs is more serious than these, with an introduction by Laurence Housman, the texts of three different 19th-century translations, together with supplementary material about Edward Fitzgerald. Sherriffs worked for a number of years as a caricaturist for Punch magazine and other publications but prior to this he was also a book illustrator. Most of his drawings are black-and-white ink renderings; the Rubáiyát is a rare example of him working in colour throughout.

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Hokusai’s Horses

Shogi Chess Board.

I ought to have posted this several weeks ago for the advent of the Year of the Horse. Umazukushi is a series of wood-block prints by Katsushika Hokusai created to celebrate another Year of the Horse, 1822. Umazukushi (also Uma-zukushi) is usually translated as “A Selection of Horses”, and this is what Hokusai gives us, albeit in a cryptic manner since most of the prints are still-life views of household objects. Each print features a short poem—the series was commissioned by a group of poets—while each picture contains a reference to horses. The allusions aren’t always easy to decipher for the non-Japanese, especially when looking back over two centuries. The Japanese robin, for example, is known as the “horse bird” as a result of its singing voice which was regarded as sounding like the neighing of a horse. I’m still not sure about some of the other prints. A complete description of the references would be useful but my searches so far have failed to turn up anything.

Inkstone in a Horseshoe Shape.

Musical Instruments and Horse’s Tail.

Toy Horse Fan and Incense Burner.

Saddle Wringer, Smoking Outfit and Plum Branch.

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