LET THERE BE LIGHT (AND SHADE)

As anyone who’s stayed in their seat for a film’s credit roll can see, it takes a village to raise a motion picture. The obsession with directors, or ‘auteurs’, over the collaborative process is deeply misleading, a product of the human mind’s unwillingness or inability to process the concept of teamwork. Among the thousand names scrolling down any screen, screenwriters are the most consistently ill-served category, but rivalling them for contribution over acclaim is the cinematographer.

This makes James Wong Howe’s renown, at least in the world of cinema buffs, all the more remarkable. As a cinematographer, the man behind the cameras, he still has no equal. He enjoyed the advantage of an early start, making his way in the industry just a little after its birth, but in every other way he earned his fame, overcoming ignorance, complacency and ever-present racism with talent, commitment and sheer force of character.