Anthony Mann

There is a fight scene in a saloon in Devil's Doorway (Anthony Mann 1950) between a Shoshone Indian and a white racist. The staging of the fight, the camera work (the images are brutal and uncomfortable yet there is also a peculiar beauty in the composition of each shot, a beauty that only enhances the power of the scene) and the choreography, together with the force of the punches and the righteousness of the Shoshone man's fight (he is not just fighting for himself but for all other Native Americans), makes it one of the best fight scenes in cinema history. The fist fight between Link and Coaley in Man of the West (Anthony Mann 1958) is another contender. It is slightly different in that it is more about humiliating the other, than standing up for a historic injustice, but the power and force of it is on the same uncomfortable level. This is the essence of Anthony Mann, these complicatedly staged and emotionally electric fight scenes between men in a state of frenzy. They reach some primordial level, and are expressions of each combatants true being, as well as Mann's. These are fights as existentialist statements.

Mann's films are not just about these fights but the fights are what the rest revolves around because such is the world as Mann sees it. A cruel, pitiless place where you fight or you die, or more often you fight, you win and then you die anyway. Man is hostile to man, and neither family nor nature will protect you. Rather the opposite. It might sound like his films are unbearably bleak and to some extent they are, but not altogether. There is also love, laughter, companionship and community, but it is always a struggle to get that, or to keep it, and you will often lose it. And it does not matter whether a film is set in ancient Rome, Texas in the late 19th century or New York in the late 1940s. We humans are the same, always, and there is no place and no time to hide. Mann also drew from old sources when making his films, such as the Bible, Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, emphasising the timelessness of human violence and suffering. But there is hope, and redemption is possible.

This world of Anthony Mann is depicted in images shot and designed with remarkable intelligence, coherence, symbolism and, again, beauty. Not the beauty of a John Ford or a Terrence Malick, well, sometimes such as in Winchester '73 (1950), but the beauty that comes from a perfect composition. A composition with a balance that brings everything together and where the theme of the film can be expressed in a single image. Through framing and blocking he often manages to make the images feel claustrophobic (sometimes becoming like pressure cookers), even if it is outdoors in the wilderness. That is one stylistic consistency through his career. Another recurrent trait of Mann is to have something threatening appearing in the lower corners of the frame, either suddenly rising in a shot, or being there from the beginning, right after a cut. It can be the face of a person, but more often it is an object, like a knife or a gun. But it is not always a threat, sometimes it is there the victim is placed.

A typical Mann composition, this from The Tall Target (1951).

Another, this from Winchester '73.

Early films such as The Great Flamarion (1945), Railroaded (1947) and in particular T-Men (1947) have great moments and incredible shots but Mann's first unequivocally great work is Raw Deal (1948), an astonishing film of genuine anguish. A raw deal is also pretty much what all Mann's characters have been given, sometimes just by having been born, or, to sound Heideggerian, thrown into this world. After Raw Deal Mann would make films for another 20 years and now, when evaluating his oeuvre as a whole, it is appropriate to say that he is one of the very best American filmmakers. He should be mentioned alongside Hawks, Ford, Welles and Hitchcock, and also alongside Fritz Lang, Kurosawa, Bergman and Visconti. Up there is where he belongs. The ghost town sequence in Man of the West is in itself enough to put him in the pantheon.

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Mann reached his peak with Men in War (1957). It is based on a book called Day Without End (aka Combat) and written by Van Van Praag, a soldier and platoon leader. The film script, with the setting changed from the Second World War to the Korean War, was written by Philip Yordan, although his name is possibly a front for Ben Maddow. It tells of one day in 1950 with a handful of soldiers drifting through enemy territory towards a hill. They are tired, afraid and confused but push forward while getting killed off, one after another. It is a tense, minimalist and almost abstract film, brilliant and disturbing.

The cinematography in Men in War is a peculiar blend of lyricism and harshness (Ernest Haller was the DoP) and everything has almost the same colour, there is very little contrast. Calling it a black and white film almost seems wrong, it is just different shades of grey. One effect this has is that the actors and the environment are sometimes hard to tell apart, they all blend into each other, making the characters one with nature. While the camera sometimes moves back and gives a bigger picture it mostly stays on the ground, tracking back and forth among the men. (To quote Manny Farber from his essay "Underground Films": "the terrain is special in that it is used, kicked, grappled, worried, sweated up, burrowed into, stomped on.") Then there is the music by Elmer Bernstein, which is spare and distinct. Sometimes a bit eerie, sometimes more lyrical, and never a traditional war movie score but more experimental. Sometimes only a single note will be heard, sometimes a longer sequence. Music and images are in complete sync.

All of these stylistic elements work together to enhance the point of the story, which is that war is brutish and nasty, but not short, and that in order to win you need to be ruthless and inhuman. When this realisation hits the platoon leader, Lieutenant Benson (played by Robert Ryan), he says through gritted teeth: "If fighting like this is what is needed to win this war then I'm not sure I want to win." It is also about how war becomes like a decease, contaminating everything. It does have a certain nihilistic quality, perhaps best expressed by Benson: "Battalion doesn't exist. regiment doesn't exist. Command HQ doesn't exist. The USA doesn't exist. We're the only ones left to fight this war."

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So Men in War is the best. But there are so many other films, ranging from good to exceptional, that I have not even mentioned yet. Side Street (1950) and The Naked Spur (1953). The Man from Laramie (1955) and The Tin Star (1957). God's Little Acre (1958) and El Cid (1961). The Last Frontier (1955) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). The companion pieces Bend of the River aka Where the River Bends (1952) and The Far Country (1954), both scripted by Borden Chase. Then there is Border Incident (1949) which is so special it deserves its own post. Reign of Terror aka The Black Book (1949) has its weaknesses but is such a visual marvel that it defies belief. That is also true for He Walked by Night (1948). Those are three of his six films made with cinematographer John Alton, one of three well-known collaborations Mann had, the other two being of course those with James Stewart (eight films) and Philip Yordan (seven films, perhaps). Writer John C. Higgins (five films) and cinematographer William H. Daniels (five films, including the uncommonly beautiful Winchester '73) should also be mentioned.

There is much that has not been discussed here (such as politics and race) but the bottom line is that there is real pain in Mann's films, and there is real beauty. That is the source of their power.

The Fall of the Roman Empire

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For those who want to read more there is Jeanine Basinger's book Anthony Mann. The second and expanded edition from 2007 is the one I recommend.

An associate of Mann was Irving Lerner, so you might also want to read my earlier post about him.

Philip Yordan wrote for Lerner as well as for Mann, so perhaps you would be interested in Nick Pinkerton's article about Yordan.

Cinematographers

"You have to understand the nature of light."

In my thesis I argue that the look of Hasse Ekman's films vary depending which cinematographer he worked with. The films he made together with masters such as Göran Strindberg and Sven Nykvist, and Gösta Roosling, are on a completely different level than the rest (which were often shot by Martin Bodin and Hilding Bladh). Ekman had an idea and a style, so you would not mistake a film by Ekman for a film by Bergman even if they would have the same cinematographer, but you will still be able to tell which of Ekman's films were shot by Strindberg and which were shot by Bladh for example.

When it comes to artists in film I think cinematographers are among the most important, and it is a shame that they, like so many other contributors, are often neglected by critics and scholars. Once I heard about an essay written about Gordon Willis and Carlo di Palma's work with Woody Allen. I got very excited that somebody was considering their vital contributions and I said to the writer that I thought Willis could light a set better than most. She replied that she did not know anything about lighting. She did not even know that this is what cinematographers do. I struggled to keep a straight face... But this is often the case. If you are not somebody really famous like Sven Nykvist or Jack Cardiff you seldom get any light shone on you, even though you yourself spend most of your time lighting others.

"Manipulating shadows and tonality is like writing music or a poem."

One of the greatest of all cinematographers, John Alton, has written a book called Painting With Light and that is what they do. The work of a good cinematographer (or DP - director of photography) can elevate the quality of a film far above the level of the script and the direction. A cinematographer, much like a director or a writer, can put his or her own individual mark on a film. Alton is an example of this, but there are others too. To name one example, the films Billy Wilder made with John F. Seitz look different from the ones Wilder made with Charles Lang. The films shot by Seitz have a harsher look, more clearly defined contrasts between white and black then those Wilder and Lang did together. But then again, the films that Lang did with Henry Hathaway look very different from than ones he made with Wilder.

"You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward."

Different DPs have their own fields that they work within. William Wyler preferred to have his films shot with extraordinary depth of field so he liked to work with Gregg Toland, beginning in 1936, who was an expert on that. They made seven films together, pushing the medium as far as it would go, much like John Ford would do with Toland on The Long Voyage Home (1940) and to a lesser extent on The Grapes of Wrath (1940). The following year Toland also worked with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane (1941). When Wyler made The Heiress (1949) he was unhappy about having to work with Leo Tover instead, who was not as good as Toland.

Speaking of Citizen Kane, it is worth pointing out that many innovations in film art have been made by cinematographers. One example is the above mentioned John F. Seitz, who took out 18 different patents during the course of his career. Another key innovator was James Wong Howe, the former boxer who became an ace cameraman. Among the things he is famous for his expressive use of deep focus on Transatlantic (William K. Howard 1931) and for using handheld cameras, while on roller skates, on Body and Soul (Robert Rossen 1947). Howe also wrote an article, The Cameraman Talks Back, because he was upset about the lack of recognition for his work, and that of his peers. The article also gives a good overview of what a cinematographer does. One of my favourites in Howe's oeuvre is Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick 1957), which looks absolutely fantastic. It too might have influenced the French New Wave, not least its scenes out on streets or in bars feels similar.

There were two key cinematographers of the French New Wave, Henri Decaë and Raoul Coutard. Decaë had made documentaries and short films, and preferred to work outdoors with handheld cameras. That way of working he brought with him when he began shooting films first with Jean-Pierre Melville (such as Bob le flambeur (1956) and later as part of the French New Wave. The most famous example is probably The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups, François Truffaut 1959) but he also worked with Louis Malle and Claude Chabrol. But perhaps even more important was Coutard. He was cinematographer on films such as Breathless (A bout de souffle, Jean-Luc Godard 1960), Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le pianiste, Truffaut 1960), Lola (Jacques Demy 1961) and Vivre sa vie (Godard 1961). Coutard and Godard worked together for several decades, and hence they are among the key couples in film history. Other important cinematographer/director relationships are Robert Burks and Alfred Hitchcock, Chris Doyle and Wong Kar-Wai, Agnes Godard and Claire Denis, Gunnar Fischer/Sven Nykvist and Ingmar Bergman and Billy Bitzer and D.W. Griffith. But some actors also form professional relationships with cinematographers, such as Greta Garbo with William H. Daniels (they did 22 films together and he clearly had a part in creating her aura and her fame).

This has not been a technical post but you can talk at great length about lenses, the film speed, candela and such, but that can wait for another day. Today the aim was just to celebrate their work.

"There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors... it's an extraordinarily subtle language. Figuring out how to speak that language is a lifetime job."

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All the quotes are from Conrad Hall, one of the great masters. He was a treasured legend among cinematographers, and active all the way up to his death, in 2003. His last film was also one of his best: Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes 2002).

This post is based on one I wrote several years ago for my Swedish film blog. It has been slightly amended 2014-03-07.

John Alton and Anthony Mann

Of all the many artistic partnerships in film history, the one between John Alton and Anthony Mann must rank among the very best. Anthony Mann is one of the greatest image-maker film history has ever seen, both in depth and in width, and John Alton is one of the greatest cinematographer of all times. Together they made a serious of noirs, and since this is still film noir-week, I'll just share a selection of scenes.

First from T-Men (1947):

Here's a scene from Raw Deal (1948):

They also did He Walked By Night (1948), Border Incident (1949) and Devil's Doorway (1950) together, bit I couldn't find any good clips from those films. Mann didn't get any screen credit for He Walked By Night but he directed most of it, and Alton's cinematography is at its finest, especially towards the sewer sequence in the end, which in all likelihood influenced Carol Reed and Robert Krasker when they made The Third Man (1949). Devil's Doorway is an example of Mann's move away from the city to the western frontier (he did three westerns in 1950), and Border Incident is probably Mann's finest film from the 1940s, but that is a blog post for a later day.

Black and white in colour

Why is it that I find black and white films almost always better looking than colour films? I think it has something to do with the fact that the world is in colour, so when you photograph it in black and white it's unavoidable that you add a certain stylishness. Even if you are a terrible cinematographer (or a regular photographer), if you do it in black and white it automatically becomes artful and different, whereas if you shoot on colour stock, it doesn't look special in any way unless you really work hard and artistically. It's therefore more difficult to make something striking in colour. But of course by no means impossible. There are many colour films which have magnificent cinematography (I will not even try and list them all), but it doesn't come naturally.

And I'm not saying that all black and white films are equally goodlooking. Films shot by, say, John Alton or Stanley Cortez, or David Lean's films, are of course superior to the works of hacks. But still.

Here's an example from He Walked By Night (1948), with John Alton as cinematographer. Notice the striking resemblance to The Third Man made the year after.