Adventures in Editing I
By Paul Duncan
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Getting access to a director's archive and finding that it is full of nuggets is a rare and precious experience. Most of my time researching a book is, more often than not, the result of many hours of research in photo archives in London (BFI, Kobal), Hamburg (DEFD), Munich (Filmbild Fundus), Paris (BiFi) and New York (Everett Collection, Photofest). For the Film Noir book I had a list of almost 300 film titles to look through. Believe me, that's no joke. When I was in New York, I spent all my days at Photofest and all my nights at the Everett Collection (they have people working through the night to look after clients worldwide). On the last night I emerged somewhat dazed at 6:00 a.m. and walked up 7th Avenue to grab a shower at the hotel before flying to Los Angeles for more research and meetings.
Each photo collection has its own strengths. For example, the BFI have tremendous depth and it is rare for them not to have at least one image from every film on my lists. Kobal have some exquisite colour portraits. For the Film Noir book I was amazed to find colour images for Criss Cross, The Big Combo, Out of the Past, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Citizen Kane! Yes, colour make-up shots of Orson Welles from Citizen Kane! Who would have believed it? As you would expect, libraries based on the Continent are stronger on European directors and films, whilst Photofest and the Everett Collection overlap somewhat on American films with Photofest stronger on recent films and Everett stronger on the older ones.
Still, whatever images I find, I am always hungry for more. The François Truffaut book was probably the most complicated I have tackled so far. First of all, I approached Madeleine Morgenstern, Truffaut's former wife, who looked after his estate until his three daughters recently came of age. She was delightfully candid about Truffaut and obviously still had much affection for him. She told me about his absent-minded habit of lighting small fires in ashtrays. I used this information when I assembled the pictures for the book, showing the various sudden fires that appear in his films as a visual theme. Madame Morgenstern asked if I recognised her Parisian apartment. It is a beautiful place on multiple levels, full of paintings and books. It is also the apartment of the central character Pierre Lachenay in La Peau douce, which was filmed in Truffaut's apartment to save money. In fact I found a lovely photo of Jean Desailly sleeping on the couch in the apartment, with Truffaut and the crew filming above him - Desailly was acting in a play during the evening and filming during the day so he was often taking naps to catch up on his sleep. Madame Morgenstern was happy to give Taschen permission to make a book on Truffaut and even took me down to her cellar so that I could pick out photos of the young Truffaut.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Getting access to a director's archive and finding that it is full of nuggets is a rare and precious experience. Most of my time researching a book is, more often than not, the result of many hours of research in photo archives in London (BFI, Kobal), Hamburg (DEFD), Munich (Filmbild Fundus), Paris (BiFi) and New York (Everett Collection, Photofest). For the Film Noir book I had a list of almost 300 film titles to look through. Believe me, that's no joke. When I was in New York, I spent all my days at Photofest and all my nights at the Everett Collection (they have people working through the night to look after clients worldwide). On the last night I emerged somewhat dazed at 6:00 a.m. and walked up 7th Avenue to grab a shower at the hotel before flying to Los Angeles for more research and meetings.
Each photo collection has its own strengths. For example, the BFI have tremendous depth and it is rare for them not to have at least one image from every film on my lists. Kobal have some exquisite colour portraits. For the Film Noir book I was amazed to find colour images for Criss Cross, The Big Combo, Out of the Past, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Citizen Kane! Yes, colour make-up shots of Orson Welles from Citizen Kane! Who would have believed it? As you would expect, libraries based on the Continent are stronger on European directors and films, whilst Photofest and the Everett Collection overlap somewhat on American films with Photofest stronger on recent films and Everett stronger on the older ones.
Still, whatever images I find, I am always hungry for more. The François Truffaut book was probably the most complicated I have tackled so far. First of all, I approached Madeleine Morgenstern, Truffaut's former wife, who looked after his estate until his three daughters recently came of age. She was delightfully candid about Truffaut and obviously still had much affection for him. She told me about his absent-minded habit of lighting small fires in ashtrays. I used this information when I assembled the pictures for the book, showing the various sudden fires that appear in his films as a visual theme. Madame Morgenstern asked if I recognised her Parisian apartment. It is a beautiful place on multiple levels, full of paintings and books. It is also the apartment of the central character Pierre Lachenay in La Peau douce, which was filmed in Truffaut's apartment to save money. In fact I found a lovely photo of Jean Desailly sleeping on the couch in the apartment, with Truffaut and the crew filming above him - Desailly was acting in a play during the evening and filming during the day so he was often taking naps to catch up on his sleep. Madame Morgenstern was happy to give Taschen permission to make a book on Truffaut and even took me down to her cellar so that I could pick out photos of the young Truffaut.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Still from 'House of Bamboo' (1955). Gang leader Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan) is hunted down by undercover cop Eddie Kenner in an amusement park on top of a Tokyo building in Sam Fuller's typically hard-hitting film noir. (c) Twentieth-Century Fox