biographycinema

Freund, Karl

German cinematographer and film director, born in Königinhof (Bohemia, or Czech Republic) on January 16, 1890 and died in Santa Monica (California) on May 3, 1969. In his long career, lasting about fifty years, he was one of the protagonists in the field of lighting and shooting; first in the European silent film season, during which he collaborated with great directors, from Fritz Lang to Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, from Paul Wegener to Oskar Eduard Messter, from Ewald André Dupont to Paul Czinner, and then in that of American sound, when he worked with John Huston, Frank Borzage, Rouben Mamoulian, Fred Zinnemann. In 1938 he won the Oscar for best photography with the film The good earth (1937; La buona terra) by Sidney A. Franklin.

He moved to Berlin as a child and began his apprenticeship by working as a worker in a stamp factory and then as a projectionist assistant. Thanks to his passion and a marked sensitivity and inventiveness for the technical aspects of cinema, in 1907 he made his debut as an operator and the following year he was called to Pathé Frérès. He was an innovative filmmaker who, through the development of ever new solutions both in the field of lighting and in the field of shooting mobility, allowed directors to fully express their creativity. In the twenties F. worked at UFA as director of photography and operator, contributing, together with the directors with whom he collaborated, to the revival of German cinema and the affirmation of expressionist cinema: with contrasting chiaroscuro effects in Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (1920; Golem - How it came into the world) by Wegener, with a new, suggestive and highly mobile use of the camera in Der letzte Mann (1924; The last laugh or The last man) by Murnau, as well as with the movements of the camera used as a exploratory and interpretative tool of reality in Dupont's Varieté (1925) and Lang's Metropolis (1927). It would be wrong, however, to link F.'s name only to the expressionist current; in fact in 1927 he took part in a work by Walter Ruttmann, the urban documentary Berlin, Die Sinfonie der Grossstadt for which, in line with the director's project, which included a portrait of the metropolis on an ordinary day, from dawn to night deep, he developed an ultra-sensitive film, thus managing to turn at night without the

The second part of F.'s career took place in the United States, where he moved in 1929. After a short period spent in New York he settled in Hollywood, and here he deepened his technical preparation and began as director, working first for Universal Pictures (1930-1935), then for Metro Goldwyn Mayer (1935-1947) and finally for Warner Bros. (1947-1950). Among the films he directed, the atypical horror The mummy (1932; The mummy), which was followed by Mad love (1935; Amore folle), both written by John L. Balderston, in which F. managed to create suggestive chiaroscuro for dark and mysterious atmospheres. Thanks to his reputation as an innovator, he was often attributed the ideation and realization of scenes of some classics of cinema: from the epilogue of All quiet on the western front (1930; All ' West nothing new) by Lewis Milestone to that of Tod Browning's Dracula (1931). Perfectly adapting his multifaceted professionalism to the needs of Hollywood cinema, limiting himself to exercising the more limited skills that were required of the director of photography, he collaborated on the films Murders in the rue Morgue (1932; The Doctor Miracle) by Robert Florey, Camille (1937; Margherita Gautier) by George Cukor, Golden boy (1939; Passion) by Mamoulian, The seventh cross (1944; The seventh cross) by Zinnemann and Key largo (1948; The coral island) by Huston. His experience and technical knowledge flowed into the activity carried out at the Photo Research Corporation, which he founded in 1944. In 1951, at the request of the actress Lucille Ball,

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BO. Blakeston, Interview with Carl Freund , in "Close up", 1929, January, pp. 58-61.

[ بازدید : 57 ] [ امتیاز : 0 ] [ نظر شما : ]