Collections/September 2022

Cinematography by James Wong Howe

Featuring an appreciation by cinematographer Bradford Young When the opening credits read “Cinematography by James Wong Howe,” it’s a sure sign of quality. A brilliant innovator whose career spanned from the silent era to the 1970s, the Chinese American trailblazer became one of golden-age Hollywood’s preeminent cameramen, renowned for his mastery of light and shadow and pioneering use of deep-focus cinematography, low-key lighting (earning him the nickname Low-Key Howe), wide-angle lenses, and dolly shots, always in service of enhancing a film’s dramatic and psychological impact. Witness the Weegee-like tabloid punch he gives to the sleazy New York cityscapes of the noir classic Sweet Smell of Success ; the fantastical, phosphorescent colors of the witchy romantic romp Bell, Book and Candle ; and the distorted expressionist flourishes he brings to John Frankenheimer’s paranoiac nightmare Seconds for a taste of Howe’s inimitable artistry.

25 films — 1 on the Channel, 24 unavailable