Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff Page #2

What are you waiting for?

Dietrich was a big sensation, of course,

and she...she used to put

gold dust in her hair.

She knew about lighting,

she'd worked with Josef von Sternberg.

She would have been

a great cameraman,

and she knew that

that lighting had to be so high,

to make a shadow under the nose,

and most cameramen over the years

have done the same sort of lighting.

She had a slightly turned-up nose.

Like Marilyn Monroe, in fact.

So to straighten it out

she had this white line down here,

and then inside here,

inside the eyes, she put this white.

See this white inside.

It must've been painful to do this.

She looked gorgeous.

But she was in command of the lighting.

She used to have a full-length mirror

by the side of the camera.

She'd look in the mirror and say, "Harry,

the back light could get a bit hotter,

"and how about the kicker light? "

She used to comment on it,

and Harry would whisper to me,

"Goddamn it, she's always right."

- Have you had luck so far?

- Wonderful luck.

And the most wonderful of all

was to meet you.

- Do you think so?

- Yes, I do think so.

Even if tomorrow

means the end of us...

...as it may do.

What about this one?

We had this scene in the bath,

and she came on the set,

and we thought she was going to be

in a swimming costume,

which was the usual thing.

When she took off her dressing gown,

she was stark naked.

Within half an hour of doing these shots

in the bath, the place was crowded.

There was about 16 electricians

on the spot rail

trying to look technical,

holding lamps and things.

The ground, which was a paper floor,

was getting wetter and wetter.

And as she got out, she slipped on

the soapy water, and fell with a crash,

and the towels missed her completely,

east and west in the air,

and there was the great Marlene

floundering about on the floor,

stark naked.

He started very early in colour.

Started about when

they started doing colour, I believe.

It's a different medium, really.

You light in a different way,

which, of course, is the cameraman.

The Technicolor people

had come over

to choose one young operator

to be trained in Technicolor,

and they came out shaking

because the technical questions

were absolutely...very, very tough.

So, when it came to my turn,

I said right away,

"I'm afraid on the technical side,

I'm zero,"

and there was a shocked silence,

and they said, "How are you

going to get on in the film business? "

I study painting and light

and lighting buildings and so on,

and they asked me, "Which side

of the face did Rembrandt light? "

I took a chance and said, "This side,

and it'd be reversed in an etching,"

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