Technicolor bears his fingerprints

JACK CARDIFF, one of the cinema’s most treasured cinematographers, will be making two rare appearances in Los Angeles to discuss his work on the classic Technicolor films “Black Narcissus” (1947), for which he won the Academy Award, and 1951’s “The African Queen.”

On Thursday, Cardiff, 91, will appear at the academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater for a screening of the new digital restoration of “Black Narcissus” by Granada International and the British Film Institute.

That screening also kicks off the academy’s weekend festival, “A Centennial Salute to Michael Powell.” Powell and co-director Emeric Pressburger made some of the most expressive, audacious films of the 1930s through the early 1950s with works such as “The Red Shoes” and “The Tales of Hoffmann.” “Narcissus,” a haunting drama about a group of nuns who establish a remote mission high in the Himalayas, is one of their most stunning, both narratively and visually.

Saturday, Cardiff will be on hand at the Egyptian Theatre to reminisce about “The African Queen,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar, as part of the American Cinematheque, SabuCat Productions and Technicolor’s celebration “Technicolor’s 90th Anniversary: A Tribute to Dye-Transfer Printing.”

The festival, which takes place Friday through Dec. 11 at the Egyptian and Dec. 9 to 11 at the Aero Theatre, will also include such vintage Technicolor films as “Cobra Woman” and “The Jolson Story,” as well as features from the 1960s such as “El Cid” and “The Music Man,” which were printed in Technicolor’s non-fading dye-transfer process.

The Technicolor camera was cumbersome but delicate, and Technicolor’s founder, Herbert Kalmus, issued strict edicts on how the camera should be handled and how cinematographers should light the films.

“They wanted light everywhere,” says Cardiff. “If you had shadows, there was a danger of the shadows looking either magnetic or green or pink. It was much more artificial and took time [to light].”

He took inspiration in his Technicolor work from the master painters, especially the Impressionists. “I learned a lot about color from them,” he says.

Cardiff worked for Technicolor in the late 1930s and early ‘40s as “a junior cameraman in waiting,” and he describes himself as the “bad boy of Technicolor” because he wouldn’t play by its stringent rules.

He tried to make the lighting as natural as possible. “Film photography has a fascinating double image,” he says. “It must accurately record real life and at that same time be a vehicle for fantasy. I was lucky to work on travelogues in 1935 and ‘36, and we would travel all over the world, doing all the things that Technicolor said must not be done.”

Technicolor wanted the cameras to be kept out of sun and heat and away from dust, and they were to be guarded when not in use. Cardiff recalls that technicians had to keep the cameras in their hotel rooms at night when they were on location.

Cardiff ran into all sorts of problems filming “The African Queen” for director John Huston.

“They picked a very, very good location in Africa, which was right for the story,” Cardiff says. “But the problem was being on a raft in a river in unknown territory sometimes. We had all sorts of accidents. Imagine being on a raft 20 feet square and drifting downriver with the current. We were towed at first and had a mock-up boat of the African Queen on the raft. It was fine going down the river when it was straight, but when you went around the corner, the towboat went around the corner, but the raft didn’t know the rules. It would crash into the bank.”

“African Queen” was Huston’s first film in Technicolor. “He was a deep thinker, whereas Michael Powell had a more embracing, cavalier approach,” says Cardiff. “If I said, ‘Michael, how about if we do this or that,’ he would say, ‘Let’s do it, lovely.’ It was a much more exciting way of doing it.”

Cardiff also directed several films, starting with the ill-fated 1953 epic “William Tell,” with Errol Flynn. “Errol and I were big buddies,” he says. “It was going to be a terrific film. The producer was a man who had lots of land and property and was a multimillionaire -- they said. But this man hadn’t any money, and the film collapsed.”

He fared better with 1960’s “Sons and Lovers,” for which he picked up a best director Oscar nomination.

Cardiff still works after 70 years in the business.

“I worked a bit last week on something,” he says. “It is more in an advisory capacity. The idea of working on a full-length feature, which means getting up at 5:30 or 6 every morning for about three or four months and coming home late at night, is not quite my cup of tea at 91 years old.”

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‘A Centennial Salute to Michael Powell’

Where: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Samuel Goldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

When: Thursday through Saturday

Price: $3 to $5

Contact: (310) 247-3600 or www.oscars.org

Schedule

Thursday: “Black Narcissus,” 8 p.m.; Friday: “The Edge of the World,” “I Know Where I’m Going!,” 7:30 p.m.; Saturday: “The Spy in Black,” “A Matter of Life and Death,” 7:30 p.m.

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‘Technicolor’s 90th Anniversary: A Tribute to Dye-Transfer Printing’

Where: American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Aero Theatre,

1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

When: Friday to Dec. 11 at the Egyptian; Dec. 9 to 11 at the Aero

Price: $9

Contact: (323) 466-FILM or www.americancinematheque.com

Schedule

Egyptian Theatre

Friday: “El Cid,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday: “The African Queen,” 5 p.m.; “Fall of the Roman Empire,” 7:30 p.m. Next Sunday: “Mondo Cane,” 6 p.m. Dec. 10: “Around the World in 80 Days,” 5 p.m.; “The Music Man,” 9 p.m. Dec. 11: Archives Expert Seminar, 4 p.m.; “The Jolson Story,” “Cobra Woman,” 6 p.m.

Aero Theatre

Dec. 9: “The African Queen,” 7:30 p.m. Dec. 10: “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” 2 p.m.; “The Greatest Show on Earth,” 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11: “The Ten Commandments,” 5 p.m.