9 / 10
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Behind every great and acclaimed director there is a team of filmmakers ranging from the gaffer to costume designer and the director of photography. Would Citizen Kane have been groundbreaking movie it was without the incredible work by Gregg Toland? Or how about Vertigo without Robert Burks or Breathless without Raoul Coutard? Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard (amongst others) all of their success, at least some of it, to the geniuses who worked out the lighting, focus and little camera tricks that make the great movies what they are. In the case of the brilliant set of movies made by Emmerich Pressburger and Michael Powell, a great deal of their success and why they are regarded so highly is down to one man: Jack Cardiff.

Cardiff, who died last year, is generally considered as the greatest cinematographer of the colour era and his work on films like Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death is still breathtaking to this day. This documentary is bookended by footage from the 2001 Academy Awards at which he became the first cinematographer to be awarded an honorary Oscar. The award, which was presented by Dustin Hoffman, was prefaced by an introduction by the great actor in which he points out that, for everyone in that room who is aged 70 or under, Jack Cardiff was making films before they were born.

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This documentary, by Craig McCall, features contributions from those who worked with him, were influenced by him and by the man himself to build a thorough portrait of what makes Jack Cardiff's work so special and why it is still so highly regarded decades after he was at the peak of his powers. Amongst those who offer their opinions are Martin Scorsese, Thelma Schoonmaker, Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall. Overall they paint a picture of a man who was utterly dedicated to his work, learned from the very best, beginning as a clapper boy at the beginning of the sound era and working with men like Alfred Hitchcock where he learnt his trade and then came into his own when Technicolor began and Cardiff, as the saying goes, 'painted with colour'. They generally all speak fondly and with great reverence to Cardiff, but the star of the show was quite clearly Scorsese whose passion for films like The Red Shoes is famous and he talks with great passion and knowledge about Cardiff's work. The various scenes from Cannes are all interesting as it is clear that Cardiff is very highly regarded in Europe.

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Craig McCall has done a sterling job in gathering a huge array of photographs, archive footage and interview material that is beautifully put together to form a revealing, informative and thoroughly engrossing portrait of a man and his work. It helps that Cardiff was so lucid right up until his final days so was able to speak at length and in detail about his career even when he was in his 90s. Of course, the documentary wouldn't really have worked so well in the subject was cantankerous, boring or generally unappealing but Jack Cardiff was such a lovely bloke that I defy anyone to watch this and not wish that they had spent at least an hour in his company talking film.

This isn't the sort of documentary that will appeal to the average viewer, and nor is it intended to, as it is aimed squarely at those who are at least partly familiar with Cardiff's work as they are the ones who will get the most out of this film. I thought I was fairly au fait with the films on which he had worked but didn't realise just how many I hadn't seen and now have a fairly sizeable list of films I want to see with the knowledge of how certain shots were created by the master cinematographer.



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