Mark Laurila, retired teacher of English and Film at California State University
August 21, 2023
Marechal1937 (YouTube)
“My aesthetic has always been tied to the Gordon Willises of the world, the Jordan Cronenweths, the Conrad Halls, the James Wong Howes… the people who took risks.”
David Fincher
‘Seven‘ Criterion Laserdisc commentary, 1996
“With all our modern technology, there is no one who can match James Wong Howe’s ability to control light in the service of story.”
Roger Deakins BSC ASC
The Inventive Versatility of James Wong Howe, Criterion, 2022
James Wong Howe ASC was a legendary Hollywood cameraman who remains too little known today, despite having been nominated ten times for Academy Awards (and winning twice). A master of black and white, he brought his characteristic, nuanced control of darkness, and light to cinematography.
He loved to tell the story of how he put on roller skates and picked up a handheld camera in order to capture the excitement of the climactic boxing match in the classic Film Noir Body and Soul (1947), starring John Garfield. The footage Wong Howe captured inside the ring became a major inspiration for Martin Scorsese when he made Raging Bull (1980). How exactly was Wong Howe’s approach so different from what had come before? This video shows examples of earlier boxing movies, such as Golden Boy (1939) and They Made Me a Criminal (1939), and compares them to Wong Howe’s achievement in Body and Soul.
The resulting analysis is surprising and will likely change perceptions of the film and of Chinese-born/American-raised James Wong Howe. Regarding the film, the innovative camerawork combines the smoothness of the Mitchell BNC with the instability of the handheld Eyemo. Regarding Wong Howe, racism was a constant presence in his life, as he experienced racist movie crews, was denied citizenship because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and was barred from marrying the writer Sanora Babb because she was white. Additional Wong Howe movies referenced here include Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Transatlantic (1931), Air Force (1943), He Ran All the Way (1951), Hud (1963), Peter Pan (1924), and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968).
Best of James Wong Howe: Body and Soul (1947)
This video presents the highlights of Wong Howe’s cinematography in the 1947 John Garfield Film Noir boxing drama Body and Soul. The movie shows how money, along with sex, can lead to corruption, a theme often found in Garfield’s movies.
The video demonstrates Wong Howe’s brilliance in several modes: Emotion and the Moving Camera (in which emotions are enhanced through the choice to move the camera through space), Romance Night and Day (showing how the mood could be created differently, depending on the time), Picturing Lust (in which he used a composition to suggest objectification), Noir Style, Deep Focus, and Pioneering Hand-held Camera.
Body and Soul was created through Garfield’s own independent production company and resulted in a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Garfield. It won for Best Editing by Robert Parrish. The film co-stars Lili Palmer, Hazel Brooks, William Conrad, Canada Lee, and Lloyd Gough (billed here as Lloyd Goff).
The film’s director Robert Rossen, its screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, and Garfield were all eventually targeted by HUAC, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, during the Hollywood Blacklists in the 1950s. Because of his blacklisting, Garfield’s career was destroyed, and he soon died of a heart attack at the age of 39.
Best of James Wong Howe: He Ran All the Way (1951)
This video presents the highlights of Wong Howe’s cinematography in the 1951 crime melodrama Film Noir He Ran All the Way, which contains the final on-screen performance by John Garfield.
The video demonstrates Wong Howe’s brilliance in several modes: Introducing a Character (which involves a fast pan, a startling push-in, and reframing to emphasize a gun), Darkness and Light (showcasing Wong Howe’s mastery of Film Noir style), Camera Placement in Pool (in which Wong Howe put on swim trunks and lowered his camera into Long Beach’s Plunge to get the play of light off the water and onto the actors’ faces), All in a Single Shot (virtuosic, and always helpful on a low budget movie), High-Angle Vulnerability (nearly a God’s Eye View looking down on human weakness), Trapped Inside Frames (fitting for a hostage story), and John Garfield’s Final Scene on Film (a collaboration with an actor that Wong Howe had loved and worked with since the 1930s).
The script was mostly written by Dalton Trumbo, but because of his blacklisting and impending prison sentence, his name was removed from the credits. The film’s director, John Berry, was also blacklisted, and he left the U.S. in order to continue working in Europe.
Best of James Wong Howe: Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
This video presents the highlights of Wong Howe’s cinematography in the 1957 Film Noir masterpiece Sweet Smell of Success. Burt Lancaster plays powerful and ruthless New York newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker who manipulates Press Agent-on-the-make Sidney Falco, played by Tony Curtis, into doing his bidding, breaking up his younger sister’s romantic relationship.
The video demonstrates Wong Howe’s brilliance in several modes: Sidney Falco and the Restless Camera (in which the constantly moving camera emphasizes the press agent’s non-stop hustling), Faces in Darkness (often suggesting hidden intentions and toxic influence), and EXT. NEW YORK CITY – NIGHT (in which Wong Howe’s mastery of location and night shooting astonishes).
Sweet Smell of Success began as a short story by Ernest Lehman, best known for writing Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest. Lehman wrote the first script, but after the director Alexander Mackendrick was hired, playwright Clifford Odets rewrote much of it, and the film’s famous acidic dialogue seems overtly Odetsian.
“Sweet Smell of Success is a crazy movie. You know, directors look at films in a pretty special way. We all have a kind of lexicon. For us, shots are common nouns and verbs that, together, form sentences or paragraphs, a language. And this language is constantly evolving. Sweet Smell of Success is part of my lexicon. It is there even when I don’t consciously refer to it. I love it because it stays true to its concept all the time. It never stops to take you by the hand, it pulls you in, period.”
David Fincher
Première, November 23, 2020
The Fincher Analyst 