Freddie Francis
Freddie Francis | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 17 March 2007 | (aged 89)
Resting place | Mortlake Crematorium, Kew, London, England |
Occupation(s) | Cinematographer, film director |
Years active | 1937–1999 |
Spouses | Gladys Dorrell
(m. 1940; div. 1961)Pamela Mann (m. 1963) |
Awards | Academy Award for Best Cinematography 1960 Sons and Lovers 1989 Glory |
Frederick William Francis (22 December 1917 – 17 March 2007) was an English cinematographer and film director.[1]
Francis started his film career as a cameraman for John Huston and for the directing team of Powell and Pressburger before becoming a cinematographer for British films such as Jack Cardiff's Sons and Lovers (1960), Jack Clayton's drama Room at the Top (1959) and psychological horror film The Innocents (1961). He became known for his collaborations with David Lynch with The Elephant Man (1980), Dune (1984), and The Straight Story (1999). He also earned acclaim for his work on The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) starring Meryl Streep, and Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991).[2] As a director, he was associated with the British production companies Amicus and Hammer in the 1960s and 1970s.
Francis earned many accolades, including two
Early life
Born in
War service
In 1939, Francis joined the
Career
1950–56: Early work
Following his return to civilian life, Francis spent the next ten years working as a camera operator. He quickly became the regular cameraman of
Francis was also the regular cameraman of Oswald Morris. His first feature with Morris was Golden Salamander (1950). The two also worked together on Knave of Hearts and three films directed by John Huston: Moulin Rouge, Beat the Devil, and Moby Dick. Francis was given a chance to lead the second unit of Moby Dick and shortly after became a full director of photography on A Hill in Korea (1956), which was shot in Portugal.
1959–68 : British films
He subsequently worked on such prestige British dramas such as Room at the Top (1959), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), Sons and Lovers (1960), and The Innocents (1961), which he regarded as one of the best films he shot.
For his work on Jack Cardiff's Sons and Lovers he received his first Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The film depicts societal repression in a small coal-mining town during the early 1900s. In the 1961 article of American Cinematographer, the magazine praised his work by stating that the film has "unusual visual beauty and is marked by photographic ingenuity throughout that easily makes it one of the finest monochrome photographic achievements to come along in some time." Cinematographer John Bailey also praised his work saying, "Then I saw Sons and Lovers, and I was knocked out by the poetry and visual beauty of the film. The camerawork was unlike anything I had seen before in an English-language movie."[4]
He next collaborated with director Jack Clayton for the psychological drama film The Innocents starring Deborah Kerr. Francis worked with the CinemaScope aspect ratio. He used colour filters and used the lighting rig to create darkness consuming everything at the edge of the frame. Francis used deep focus and narrowly aimed the lighting towards the centre of the screen.[5] Francis and Clayton framed the film in an unusually bold style, with characters prominent at the edge of the frame and their faces at the centre in profile in some sequences, which, again, created both a sense of intimacy and unease, based on the lack of balance in the image. For many of the interior night scenes, Francis painted the sides of the lenses with black paint to allow for a more intense, "elegiac" focus,[6] and used candles custom-made with four to five wicks twined together to produce more light.
The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael praised Francis for his work writing, "I don’t know where this cinematographer Freddie Francis sprang from. You may recall that in the last year just about every time a British movie is something to look at, it turns out to be his".[7]
1963–70: Work as a director
Following his
Also in the mid-1960s, Francis began an association with
1980–91: Return to cinematography
In 1980 he returned to work as a director of photography this time for
Francis gained a new-found industry and critical respect as a cinematographer. During the 1980s, collaborated with Lynch two more times with the science fiction film Dune (1984) and the drama The Straight Story (1999), which was shot on location in Iowa in 23 days. One of his favorite camera operators was Gordon Hayman.
He worked on films such as The Executioner's Song (1982), Clara's Heart (1988). Francis's last film as director was 1987's Dark Tower (no relation to the 2004 book of the same name by Stephen King). Francis thought it was a bad picture owing to poor special effects and had his name taken off it. His name was substituted with the name Ken Barnett.
With his work on the
Francis provided the cinematography for the critical favorite The Man in the Moon as well as Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear (both 1991). Francis' suggested that he earned the job working with Scorsese was a recommendation that came from director Michael Powell. Francis again sought to utilize deep focus in order to keep the audience anxiously searching the frame for the psychopathic Max Cady played by Robert De Niro. Francis spoke fondly of his working relationship with Scorsese saying,
"Scorsese is another director who has shot the film in his head before you’ve exposed a single frame of film. You can sometimes talk him into something, though. There was one scene with Bob De Niro where he’s talking on the phone, hanging upside-down from a bar strung across a doorway. I suggested that we start the shot upside down, tight on his face, and then rotate the camera as we tracked backwards so the room would become upside-down. We did that shot with a Panatate remote head, and Marty just fell madly in love with the thing."[9]
Francis' final feature film as a director of photography was a reunion with David Lynch the small intimate drama The Straight Story (1999).
2004–12: Recognition and final years
Francis received many industry awards, including, in 1997, an international achievement award from the
Freddie's final work was to be the cinematographer on the music video
Personal life
Francis married Gladys Dorrell in 1940, with whom he had a son; in 1963 he married Pamela Mann-Francis, with whom he had a daughter and a second son.
Francis died at age 89 as the result of the lingering effects of a stroke.
Filmography
As cinematographer
Film
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1956 | A Hill in Korea | Julian Amyes | |
1957 | Time Without Pity | Joseph Losey | |
The Scamp | Wolf Rilla | ||
1958 | Next to No Time | Henry Cornelius | |
Virgin Island | Pat Jackson | ||
1959 | Room at the Top | Jack Clayton | |
1960 | Saturday Night and Sunday Morning | Karel Reisz | |
Sons and Lovers | Jack Cardiff | ||
Never Take Sweets from a Stranger | Cyril Frankel | ||
1961 | The Innocents | Jack Clayton | |
1980 | The Elephant Man | David Lynch | |
1981 | The French Lieutenant's Woman | Karel Reisz | |
1983 | The Jigsaw Man | Terence Young | |
1984 | Memed, My Hawk | Peter Ustinov | |
Dune | David Lynch | ||
1985 | Return to Oz | Walter Murch | Uncredited |
Code Name: Emerald | Jonathan Sanger | ||
1988 | Clara's Heart | Robert Mulligan | |
1989 | Her Alibi | Bruce Beresford | |
Brenda Starr | Robert Ellis Miller | With Peter Stein | |
Glory | Edward Zwick | ||
1991 | Cape Fear | Martin Scorsese | |
The Man in the Moon | Robert Mulligan | ||
1992 | School Ties | Robert Mandel | |
1996 | Rainbow | Bob Hoskins | |
1999 | The Straight Story | David Lynch | Final film |
Television
Year | Title | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1961 | The Magical World of Disney |
William Fairfield | Episodes: The Horsemasters |
1982 | The Executioner's Song | Lawrence Schiller | TV movie |
1989 | Peter Cushing: One Way Ticket to Hollywood | Alan J.W. Bell | TV documentary |
1990 | The Plot to Kill Hitler | Lawrence Schriller | TV movie |
1993 | A Life in the Theatre | Gregory Mosher | TV movie |
As director
- Two and Two Make Six (1962)
- The Brain (a.k.a. Vengeance) (1962)
- The Day of the Triffids (1963)
- Paranoiac (1963)
- The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
- Traitor's Gate (1964)
- Nightmare (1964)
- Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)
- The Skull (1965)
- Hysteria (1965)
- The Psychopath (1966)
- The Deadly Bees (1967)
- They Came from Beyond Space (1967)
- Torture Garden (1967)
- Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
- Trog (1970)
- Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1970)
- The Vampire Happening (1971)
- Tales from the Crypt (1972)
- The Creeping Flesh (1973)
- Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
- Son of Dracula (1974)
- The Ghoul (1975)
- Legend of the Werewolf (1975)
- The Doctor and the Devils (1985)
- Dark Tower(1989)
Awards and nominations
Year | Award | Category | Work | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
1960 | Academy Awards | Best Cinematography | Sons and Lovers | Won |
1989 | Glory | Won | ||
1980 | British Academy Film Awards | Best Cinematography | The Elephant Man | Nominated |
1981 | The French Lieutenant's Woman | Nominated | ||
1990 | Glory | Nominated | ||
1991 | Cape Fear | Nominated |
References
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/98649. Retrieved 31 October 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Freddie Francis: 10 essential films". British Film Institute. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
- ^ "Freddie Francis | British cinematographer and director". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
- ^ "Cinematic Glory". American Cinematographer. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
- ^ Landis 2011, p. 110.
- ^ Hogan 2016, p. 87.
- Criterion Collection. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
- ^ Kenigsberg, Ben (16 July 2020). "Do Cinematographers Have a Signature? Let's Try a Test". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
- ^ a b "Cinematic Glory: Freddie Francis, BSC". American Cinematographer. 30 December 2021.
Sources
- Freddie Francis: The Straight Story from Moby Dick to Glory, a Memoir - Freddie Francis (with Tony Dalton), Scarecrow Press, 2013.
- The Films of Freddie Francis – ISBN 0-8108-2358-6(hardcover)
- The Men Who Made The Monsters – Paul M. Jensen, published 1996 – ISBN 0-8057-9338-0(paperback)
- Hogan, David J. (2016). Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film. McFarland Classics. ISBN 978-0-786-46248-3.
- ISBN 978-0-756-68846-2.
External links
- Freddie Francis The British Entertainment History Project
- Freddie Francis at IMDb
- Freddie Francis biography on (re)Search my Trash