‘It was only with ’The Stranger’ in 1945, and the subsequent move to Universal in 1947, that Russell Metty made the transition from being a capable cameraman to a great one. Whether or not Welles had a creative place in this, ‘The Stranger’ would seem to be the first unmistakably Metty film, stamped with what became his highly distinctive use of light and shadow. In particular, his economy with and distribution of lights is frequently such that, as characters move around a room, they shift in and out of shadowed areas in an unusual way for a Hollywood movie, in which – with certain obvious exceptions such as film noir – a generally ‘high key’ evenness of illumination prevails. The effect is of constantly changing patterns of lighting, shading and silhouetting on faces and bodies which runs through the mise-en-scène like a rippling ‘painting with light’, independently of the director’s contribution. For example, the first scene between Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Preston in ‘The Lady… read more
‘It was only with ’The Stranger’ in 1945, and the subsequent move to Universal in 1947, that Russell Metty made the transition from being a capable cameraman to a great one. Whether or not Welles had a creative place in this, ‘The Stranger’ would seem to be the first unmistakably Metty film, stamped with what became his highly distinctive use of light and shadow. In particular, his economy with and distribution of lights is frequently such that, as characters move around a room, they shift in and out of shadowed areas in an unusual way for a Hollywood movie, in which – with certain obvious exceptions such as film noir – a generally ‘high key’ evenness of illumination prevails. The effect is of constantly changing patterns of lighting, shading and silhouetting on faces and bodies which runs through the mise-en-scène like a rippling ‘painting with light’, independently of the director’s contribution. For example, the first scene between Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Preston in ‘The Lady Gambles’ 1949, a three minute take in a hotel room, is somewhat awkwardly directed in terms of character staging and acting, but is quite subtle in the play of light and shade on the characters’ faces. ‘Ivy’ 1947, as Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg in ‘Hollywood in the Forties’ [The Tantivy Press/A.S. Barnes & Co.] point out, is a tourde-force of Metty’s art. They cite in particular the opening scene at the fortune-teller’s, but the whole film is beautifully lit, with a range of effects from the dramatically chiaroscuro to the delicately patterned. The former may be seen above all in the expressionistic imagery of the poison sequences, in which, as Joan Fontaine’s Ivy obtains the poison, she is so positioned and lit that she becomes faceless and bodiless, with just her arms, like white tentacles, reaching to spoon the poison into her purse. The beautiful butterfly of the earlier scenes here becomes a spider.
In both of these films, Metty’s photography seems to me the best thing about them. In his late ‘40s work at least, this was not unusual: ’Arch of Triumph’ 1946 is another example, Metty’s low key photography contributing far more effectively than Milestone’s direction to the film’s noir atmosphere of angst and paranoia. Then, in the ‘50s, Metty was teamed with Douglas Sirk. The combination of talents could scarcely be more auspicious: a director with a superb eye for visual composition and a cameraman with an impeccable touch in the subtleties of light and shade. The difference between ’All I Desire’ [1952-53] and ’There’s Always Tomorrow’ 1955 in terms of mise-en-scène is not the compositions – Sirk’s visual sense is equally stunning in both movies – but the lighting. Whereas Carl Guthrie in ‘All I Desire’ executes Sirk’s shots faultlessly, Metty in ’There’s Always Tomorrow’ transforms them, with his nuances of lighting, into dazzling examples of a cameraman’s art.
Brilliant in black and white, Metty could be even more remarkable in color: is there a more beautiful film of the ‘50s then ’All That Heaven Allows’? Whereas other cameramen filming in color would feel obliged to increase the overall illumination, Metty frequently films with the same play of light and shadow as in black and white. The scenes in the old mill in ‘All That Heaven Allows’ contain shadow and silhouette effects that even by the standards of today look extraordinary. Mary-Beth Haralovich, looking into the Universal archives on Sirk’s movies, has discovered that Metty allowed no-one to interfere with his work, including the Technicolor consultant, one of whom was assigned to every Technicolor movie to monitor the hues and contrasts. For such intransigence, we can certainly be grateful. [Not until ‘A Time to Love and a Time to Die’ (1957) did Sirk and Metty switch to Eastmancolor.] She also discovered that Sirk and Metty filmed very quickly, regularly finishing ahead of schedule and under budget. Clearly that would have endeared them to Universal.
Another of Metty’s ‘50s masterworks, ’Touch of Evil’, is in dramatic contrast to his films with Sirk. Sirk may have used wide angle lenses extensively [e.g. ‘Written on the Wind’] and long takes occasionally, but Welles pushed everything to extremes: very wide angle lenses, very long, elaborate takes, fast tracks, sweeping cranes and harsh, slashing lighting. The Wellesian bravura of the mise-en-scène is dizzying, but Metty’s control looks perfect. Certainly Charlton Heston eulogizes his work in ‘The Actor’s Life’, stating that the speed with which Metty worked was exceptional in that, unlike with other cameramen, speed did not mean a sacrifice of quality.
Metty eventually won an Oscar for ‘Spartacus’, but the recognition of his talents was ridiculously overdue. He had been brilliant for years, only the films weren’t the sort that attracted the attention of the Hollywood establishment. Nor were most of the films that he made through the ‘60s, although, on the evidence of those I’ve seen, his style continued to be similarly distinctive. Within the Hollywood hierarchy, Metty may have been the top cameraman at Universal, but Universal was a ‘minor’ studio. However, true cinéastes would place him considerably higher than that.’ —Michael Walker in ‘Film Dope’, #42, October 1989.
