The Life and Films of John Alton
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PAINTING WITH LIGHT THROUGH A LENS DARKLY: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF JOHN ALTON Todd McCarthy "Black and white are colors," John Alton has with the long-overdue republication of his clas- stated, and no cinematographer in film history sic 1949 book, Painting With Light, the first has more deeply explored the value of those book on the art of cinematography ever written colors, or the nature of the violent contrast be- by a leading Hollywood cameraman. This event, tween them, than has John Alton. "I could see along with the groundswell of attention Alton more in the dark than I could in color," he has been receiving, represents a happy confir- claimed, "I could see in the dark." His remark- mation of this volumes original epigraph: "Life able talent lay in the way he enabled audiences is short, but long enough to get what's coming to do the same. to you." At the same time, Alton displayed a remark- For too many years, Alton was one of the pri- able ability—intentional or not—to enshroud vate pet obsessions of a handful of film buffs his career in mystery. He was the Greta Garbo and critics; those who even knew his name and of Hollywood cameramen, an Austro-Hungarian could cite a few of his credits belonged to a sort nearly as illustrious in his own field as the great of secret society, a shadowy inner circle within Swede was in hers and, as the years passed, the already exclusive coterie of specialists in possibly even more mysterious and elusive. Af- film noir. Yet, over time, such films as T-Men, ter he abruptly quit the industry in 1960 at Raw Deal, He Walked by Night, Border Inci- age 59, he was rumored to have abandoned cin- dent, and The Big Combo gradually developed ema for painting, and to be living in Switzer- wider fallowings and their striking style began land, Patagonia, or even Hollywood. He refused asserting an influence on contemporary film- all requests for interviews or to be a guest at makers. Recognition started with the cults sur- film festivals. The image grew of a ferocious rounding Anthony Mann and Joseph H. Lewis, artistic purist who would tolerate no intrusion but finally it became clear that even these di- upon his privacy or the sanctity of his vision. rectors' other films didn't look like this, that the As it happens, Alton is decidedly an artistic essence, and ultimate example, of film noir style purist, but is ferocious only in the tenaciousness was, logically enough, created by a cinematog- with which he expresses his ideals and opinions. rapher, not a director. A Middle European charmer and bon vivant Considerable academic study has been de- even at 92, Alton has proven to be the most dis- voted to film noir in an attempt to define it, arming and congenial of guests since, in 1993, describe its parameters, and explain it socio- he finally reemerged into the public eye at film logically, historically, and artistically. But no festivals and special screenings. This process of matter whom one credits with having set the reacquaintance with cinephiles now continues tone for noir—hard-boiled crime writers such as xix Chandler, Cain, and Hammett; expressionistic- theless devoted a section of the film to Alton's minded, predominantly Germanic émigré di- work. When he heard about the film, he wanted rectors, including Lang, Wilder, Siodmak, and to see it, and since then I have had the privilege Preminger; economy-minded executives and of spending considerable time with him at pri- producers looking for tough, timely material vate screenings of his own pictures, many of that could be done on the cheap; or the politi- which he was seeing for the first time in de- cians of the postwar, Red Scare era who helped cades; at the Telluride Film Festival, where I foster a paranoid cultural climate—there can helped present the first tribute to Alton's work be no doubt that John Alton pushed film noir to attended by the artist himself (Fig. 1); and at its most exciting visual extremes. In the defini- his apartment in Beverly Hills—which is domi- tive noir period, roughly 1946-1951, no one's nated by a few of his own paintings, some blacks were blacker, shadows longer, contrasts photographs, and his Oscar for An American stronger, or focus deeper than John Alton's. In in Paris—where he patiently and vigorously an- fashioning the nocturnal world inhabited by swered my many questions about his life and noir's desperate characters, Alton was ever con- career. sistent and imaginative in forging his signature, John Alton began his long, accomplished, illuminating scenes with single lamps, slanted and exceedingly well-traveled life on October 5, and fragmented beams and pools of light, all 1901, in Sopron, a Hungarian village near what separated by intense darkness in which the is now the Austrian border. The family name source of all fear could fester and finally thrive. at the time was the German Altman, although Alton's films are paradoxically filled with violent Herr Altman's father undoubtedly had a dif- killings and relatively absent of kinetic action, ferent surname before moving to Vienna from largely because his sculpted style demanded Russia. John's father Sam Altman, who was born a choreography of shots different, and more in 1872, and his brother Emile emigrated in the static, than the norm. Very often, the brightest 1880s to the United States, where they changed object in the frame would be located at the fur- their names to Alton and became U.S. citizens, thest distance from the camera, in order to thereby giving John Alton an American connec- channel viewer concentration; often, the light tion long before he was born. Emile stayed, but would just manage to catch the rim of a hat, the in time Sam returned to Vienna, where he re- edge of a gun, the smoke from a cigarette. claimed the Altman name and became a brandy, Actors' faces, normally the object of any cam- wine, and champagne maker and exporter. For eraman's most ardent attention, were often in- a time, he worked for the wealthy Szecheny visible or obscured, with characters from T-Men family, and it was in the Szecheny castle, where to, perhaps most memorably, The Big Combo the Altmans had rooms, that John (or Jacob in playing out their fates in silhouette against a German, or Janos in Hungarian) was born. witheringly blank, impassive background. Few, The family had a strong Jewish identity. Sam's if any other, cinematographers' styles could be wife, whom he had met through a traditional said to express a philosophy, a concrete view of matchmaker, was a Sephardic Jew named Eva the world, but Alton's certainly represents the Lipschutz, a descendant of a prominent family purest visual correlative for fatalistic existential- that had fled Spain for Austria during the In- ism yet seen in motion pictures. quisition. For his part, Sam was an adherent of I came to know John Alton as a result of my the Austro-Hungarian Zionist leader Theodor work on the documentary Visions of Light: The Herzl. "My father was a Zionist all his life, on Art of Cinematography. Unable to locate Alton the religious end," Alton recalled. "He was Or- to interview him, my collaborators and I none- thodox, and I didn't agree with all that. He xx Fig. 1 Filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier, John Alton, and Todd McCarthy during audience discussion at 1993 Telluride Film Festival. Photograph © Wendy H. Smith, courtesy of Tetturide Film Festival. spoke Hebrew as a boy, so when he got to Pales- became a bookworm and was not very success- tine he was able to start making speeches right ful," John recalled. "My father caught the bug away." of money in America, and he tried for the rest John's native language was "Viennese dialect" of his life to make everyone American." The German, but he also grew up learning Hun- second son, Bernard, "was the smartest and garian and Romanian (a list to which he later most educated of the children. He studied phi- added English, Spanish, French, Italian, and a losophy and was in the German Army in World smattering of other tongues). When the boy War I. But later he stayed too long and the was four, the family moved to Transylvania, and Nazis got him and killed him." A daughter, subsequently Sam opened his own winery in Anna, was next, followed by John, son Harry, Romania. A precocious kid, John displayed an and daughter Esther. artistic bent, taking up photography at age five, Just young enough to miss military service in learning to develop his own film, and drawing World War I, Alton attended college for two constantly. "In school, I was very bad in most years. But, as he put it, "I didn't see my future subjects, but very good in drawing and art," in Hungary." Feeling there were few opportu- Alton said. There were six Altman children. The nities for Jews in top professions, and always eldest son Michael "was artistically inclined, fascinated by the stories of America told by his but my father killed the artist in him, so he father and uncle, he decided to take a chance xxi and go to New York, which he did by freighter first real job at the Paramount Studios lab in in 1919. His mother had died in surgery in Long Island City. When he had earned enough Vienna in 1914, and after leaving for America, money, he bought a car and, in the winter of Alton never saw any of his family again except 1923-1924, caravaned with five friends across for his younger sister Esther, whom he visited the country.