Jack Cardiff in conversation

The talented cinematographer Jack Cardiff talks to Ian Christie, professor of film and media history at Birkbeck College. Cardiff was the first person in the UK to use the new technicolor format. He was given his big break by director / producer team Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressburger who, noticing how technically precise the young camera operator was they duly promoted him to cinematographer. Cardiff didnt look back and became visually responsible for the best Powell and Pressburger projects -- A Matter Of Life And Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1949). Powell trusted Cardiff and offered him an enormous amount of freedom with big budgets to experiment with new ideas and techniques. This evening however will not centre solely upon his filmography or upon the technical aspects of his work but instead concentrate on the strong influence that paintings in the National Gallery had on the future image maker. We'll attend this talk ourselves just to find out which pictures in the NG's collection inspired Conan The Destroyer (1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985).SD