 The career of John Alcott, cut tragically short by a fatal heart attack in
1986, began in the 1940s at Gainsborough studios, where his father was
production controller. By the 1960s he had become an assistant to Geoffrey
Unsworth and gained his big break on Stanley Kubrick's mammoth production of
2001: A Space Odyssey (UK/US, 1968). Unsworth had to leave the film, which took
two years to make, because of other commitments, and Alcott was promoted to
photographing the opening 'Dawn of Man' section. This was shot on a large studio
set using a specially designed front-projection system, in order to control the
lighting approximating the weak light of dawn - a sequence that would have taken
months to film in the African locations where the action is supposed to take
place.
Alcott graduated to director of photography on Kubrick's next film, his
infamous adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange (1971),
withdrawn by the director in Britain after it was implicated in a media panic
about the rising level of violence in society. Set in a near future delineated
by a combination of 1970s high kitsch interior design and urban decay, the film
graphically charts the exploits of Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a savage young gang
leader who is arrested and brainwashed by the state in order to 'cure' him of
his violent tendencies. A Clockwork Orange makes extensive use of real
locations, including some quite cramped interiors, illuminated in a rather hard
and cold style by Alcott. The opening shot of Alex's malevolent face sets the
tone, his piercing blue eyes blazing out from a smooth shadowless visage. The
first half of the film is deliberately stylised, with prolific use of hand-held
camera, wide-angle lenses, slow and stop-motion and the deliberate mixing of
orange incandescent light with the harsher blues of daylight, before giving way
to a more naturalistic approach for the 'rehabilitation' sequences ill the
prison and hospital.
Kubrick's adaptation of Barry Lyndon (1975), Thackeray's tale of a lowborn
but ambitious young Irishman who in the course of his adventures almost succeeds
in becoming a member of the English aristocracy, is arguably the highlight of
Alcott's career, and won him the 1976 Oscar for best cinematography. This
presented a variety of photographic challenges, not least of which was how to
create an 'authentic' sense of period in the interiors, as Alcott notes:
In most instances we were trying to create the feeling of natural light
within the houses, mostly stately homes, that we used as shooting locations.
That was virtually their only source of light during the period of the film.
For daytime sequences this involved shining mini-brutes (small lights)
through the windows, creating interesting contrasts of light and shadow within
an overall subdued effect in both the rude Irish cottages of Barry's home and
the opulent English stately homes he infiltrates. The soft muted colours were
maintained throughout by a combination of low light levels and a low contrast
filter and a brown net - rather than diffusing the lights, which would have
destroyed the subtle effects created by the Irish light that enhances many of
the exteriors in the early part of the film. Alcott also makes frequent use of
an Angenieux zoom during the film).
But the most revolutionary aspect of the cinematography on Barry Lyndon are
the interior sequences illuminated only by candlelight. While Walter Lassally
had used a similar effect fourteen years earlier on A Taste of Honey (d. Tony
Richardson, 1961), this was facilitated by fast black-and-white film stock and
even by the mid-1970s no colour film existed of sufficient speed to register an
acceptable image at such low light levels. However, Kubrick had discovered three
special ultra-fast Zeiss lenses for a still camera left over from a batch made
for the Apollo moon Iandings. These allowed filming in candlelight - with metal
reflectors mounted above the chandeliers to give some reflected toplight - at a
level as low as three footcandles. The added problem of following focus at such
low light levels was solved by using a closed-circuit video camera mounted at
ninety degrees to the film camera. The image was relayed to a monitor mounted
over the camera-lens scale which had a grid over the screen, allowing focus
puller Doug Milsome to watch the actors' range of movement forwards and
backwards in relation to the limited field of focus. In spite of such logistics,
Alcott achieves a slight burnt-out effect in the candlelight, the high key on
the faces of the actors combining with the white make-up worn by some to give
them a fragile porcelain quality.
Alcott and Kubrick's final collaboration was another adaptation, The Shining
(US/UK, 1980), from Stephen King's novel. Most of the action takes place in a
remote and empty hotel where the caretaker, in a fabulously over-the-top
performance by Jack Nicholson, turns psychotic and proceeds to terrorise his
wife and small son. The hotel lounge and ballroom sets, built at Elstree, were
lit by a combination of practicals and simulated daylight via a specially
constructed lighting unit which contained 860 1,000-watt bulbs diffused through
a screen and which could be manoeuvred to follow the action. This lighting
allowed much of the action to he shot in long fluid takes using the Steadicam
system. Indeed, The Shining abounds with exemplary uses of the system as
inventor Garrett Brown, who operated it on the production, remarks:
Kubrick wasn't just talking of stunt shots and staircases. He would use the
Steadicam as it was intended to be used - as a tool which can help get the lens
where it's wanted in space and time without the classic limitations of the dolly
and crane.
The most memorable Steadicam sequences include those shots of the little boy
frantically pedalling his tricycle through corridors of the empty hotel. For
these, Brown sat in a modified wheelchair which coped with bumps as the action
moves from carpet to linoleum and back again. The climactic scene at night in
the snow-covered hedge maze when Nicholson, by now completely deranged, chases
his terrified wife and son, is equally effective both in terms of lighting -
fixed flood lights with a fill running behind - and frenetic camera movement.
After extensive tests in the maze, a wide-angle lens of 9.8mm was chosen and the
ideal height was determined as two feet from the ground: this gave a tremendous
sense of speed and ominous height to the walls.
Unfortunately, none of Alcott's other credits come close to matching the
technical or artistic ambition of his work for Kubrick. During the 1970s he
tended to specialise in bland mid-Atlantic fare, before emigrating in 1981 to
the United States, where he immediately found work on more interesting
projects.
Duncan Petrie
This entry is taken from Duncan Petrie's The British Cinematographer (BFI, 1996). Used by permission.
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