Life, Death, and Technicolor: A Tribute to Jack Cardiff

March 25, 2010 - April 17, 2010

The Red Shoes, April 4

Born to music-hall performers in England in 1914, Jack Cardiff was working on movie sets by the age of fifteen. In the mid-1930s he became Technicolor’s preferred camera operator. In this capacity, Cardiff worked on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), which led him to collaborate with the writer-director team on three masterpieces of late-forties British cinema, now as the cinematographer: A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, and The Red Shoes. Cardiff remained one of British and American cinema’s most sought-after cinematographers throughout the fifties. In the sixties he focused on directing, gaining particular attention for the D. H. Lawrence adaptation Sons and Lovers (1960) and the Swinging London classic The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968). Cardiff died last April at the age of ninety-four. We pay tribute to him with five films from his peak as a cinematographer, a testament to the stunning artistry of a color photographer without peer.

Jonathan L. Knapp
PFA Program Coordinator

Thursday, March 25, 2010
7:00 p.m. A Matter of Life and Death
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger (U.K., 1946). World War II fighter pilot David Niven is caught between a black-and-white heaven and a glorious Technicolor earth in this odd and compelling hybrid of romantic fantasy and wartime propaganda. (104 mins)

Saturday, March 27, 2010
8:35 p.m. Black Narcissus
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger (U.K., 1947). This tale of nuns in a remote Himalayan convent reaches delirious heights of psychosexual melodrama, thanks in large part to Cardiff’s Oscar-winning cinematography. (100 mins)

Sunday, April 4, 2010
3:00 p.m. The Red Shoes
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger (U.K., 1948). Ballerina Moira Shearer must choose between love and art in this ravishing melodrama. “Truly one of the most beautiful Technicolor films ever made.”—Martin Scorsese. “No flatscreen TV will ever do it justice—see it in the theater.”—New York (133 mins)

Sunday, April 11, 2010
5:15 p.m. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
Albert Lewin (U.S., 1951). Set on the Spanish coast and starring Ava Gardner and James Mason, this spectacular drama is “the supreme encounter between Surrealism and Hollywood.”—Jonathan Rosenbaum. “Watching this film is like entering a strange and wonderful dream.”—Martin Scorsese (120 mins)

Saturday, April 17, 2010
6:30 p.m. The Barefoot Contessa
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (U.S., 1954). Mankiewicz’s ruthless Hollywood cautionary tale stars Ava Gardner as a Spanish waif and Humphrey Bogart as the cynical director who discovers her. (128 mins)

Series curated by Susan Oxtoby. Program notes by Jonathan L. Knapp.
Archival prints are presented with support from the Packard Humanities Institute.