Douglas Slocombe OBE - BAFTA Tribute

The remarkable life and times of a great cinematographer, the oldest honorary member of the BSC Douglas Slocombe OBE was the subject of an outstanding Bafta Tribute on December 9th.

Now in his 98th year “Duggie” as he is affectionately known, was described as one of the true geniuses of his medium and an artist whose development tells the story of post-war cinema. The tributes paid to him with such love and respect told their own story : Steven Spielberg, Walter Murch, Vanessa Redgrave, Harrison Ford, Glenda Jackson, James Fox, Michael Deeley, Sir Tim Rice, Norman Jewison, Googie Withers and others. The loyalty Duggie inspired in his crew was movingly told by Robin Vidgeon BSC who, together with the late operator Chic Waterston, had worked together as his team for 25 years without ever a cross word or loss of temper from a man he described as a kind, gentle human being.

“Cinematographers rarely get the credit they deserve. The egotism of directors and the sinister doctrine of auteur theory have seen to that” wrote the broadcaster and writer, Mathew Sweet to whom Imago is indebted for the following overview of the man who was the subject of this emotional and wonderful Bafta Tribute .

“The images he has captured with his camera are in the heads of anyone who loves the movies: Alec Guiness making breathless progress over the soot-black townscape in The Man in the White Suit; Dirk Bogarde sweaty with sadism and fury in the hothouse of The Servant; the face of Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter; Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark, fleeing the relentless progress of the most famous boulder in film history.

Douglas’ father, George, was a celebrated Paris correspondent who interviewed both Hitler and Mussolini and was instrumental in securing Gandhi’s release from jail. The young Douglas was introduced to James Joyce at his French home from where as a fluent French speaker he returned to England in 1933.

Douglas told on film the story of how on stage in Danzig in 1938 he incurred a look of displeasure from Goebbels from the noise of his Eymo camera. He judged it expedient to escape by creeping under the arms of the saluting Hitler Youth. The American documentary-maker Herbert Kline asked him to return to the city and as Europe erupted into war, Slocombe’s life through a lens began.

His facility for speed, improvisation and location work were recognised when he joined Ealing , the friendliest of British studios. The man who kept the camera running as he fled the Blitzkrieg of the Polish Army is the same man who recorded Alec Guinness’s flight across the bombsites of London in The Lavender Hill Mob, negotiated those vast Indian Crowd scenes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and tracked Michael Caine and the fleet of Mini Coopers negotiating the Spanish Steps on The Italian Job.

For Kind Hearts and Coronets he conceived and executed a shot, which captured the six disguises of Alec Guinness within the same frame. For Robbery he filmed a train heist that elevated larceny to one of the high arts- an art as high as his own work with the camera.

When film programmers finally abandon the idea that the director is a movie’s only author, Douglas Slocombe’s name will be where it deserves; on the spine of the box set; on the walls of the film centres in Britain. He has worked with some of the most visionary directors in the medium- Cavalcanti, Hamer ,Huston. Losey, Polanski, Spielberg- and his vision is as coherent, as personal, and as profound as theirs.

Imago is indebted to Mathew Sweet, the host, Bafta and Panavision and many others for making this Tribute to Douglas Slocombe OBE BSC such a memorable event, especially for “Duggie”

Nigel Walters BSC Imago President
 

picture from Out Standing Stills BSC - Douglas on the left, Chic Waterstone and Robin Vidgeon BSC on the right

FILMOGRAPHY

The Big Blockade (1942)
Dead of Night (1945)
The Captive Heart (1946)
Hue and Cry (1947)
Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948)
It Always Rains on Sunday (1948)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
The Man in the White Suit (1951)
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
Mandy (1952)
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
The Smallest Show on Earth(1957)
The Man in the Sky (1957)
Circus of Horrors (1960)
Taste of Fear (1961)
The Young Ones (1961)
Freud the Secret Passion (1962)
The L-Shaped Room (1962)
The Servant (1963)
The Third Secret (1964)
Guns at Batasi (1964)
Promise Her Anything (1965)
A High Wind in Jamaica (1965)
The Blue Max (1966)
Robbery (1967)
The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
The Lion in Winter (1968)
The Italian Job (1969)
The Music Lovers (1970)
Murphy's War (1971)
Travels with My Aunt (1972)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
The Great Gatsby (1974)
The Maids (1974)
Rollerball (1975)
Hedda (1975)
Nasty Habits (1977)
Julia (1977)
Caravans (1978)
The Lady Vanishes (1979)
Nijinsky (1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Never Say Never Again (1983)
The Pirates of Penzance (1983)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Lady Jane (1986)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

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