Aces of the Camera — Gregg Toland (1942) 🇺🇸
Aces of the Camera XIII: Gregg Toland, A.S.C.
by Walter Blanchard
Since the release of the spectacularly-photographed Citizen Kane, the name of Gregg Toland, A.S.C., has probably been more extensively publicized than that of any other cinematographer in the history of the industry. Thousands of people who had previously never given a thought to the men who photograph the pictures they see, now speak knowingly of the importance of the cameraman’s contribution, and refer to Toland as Hollywood’s foremost master of the camera.
Most of Toland’s fellow cinematographers also agree in rating him very close to the top of the camera profession. But with one difference: they base their judgment on the many superbly-photographed productions he had filmed before Citizen Kane and its attendant publicity came along. For Kane and Toland’s treatment of it sharply divided the opinions of the professional photographic community. Some feel he has made a tangibly worthwhile contribution to camera technique. Others feel just as strongly that the Kane technique is reminiscent of methods discarded before cinematography reached its present maturity. But they all agree in praising the artistic and technical skill which produced such films as the Academy Award-winning Wuthering Heights, “Intermezzo,” “The Long Voyage Home,” Grapes of Wrath, the Technicolored “Goldwyn Follies,” and innumerable others.
Most of them feel, too, that Toland’s acknowledged brilliance has placed him in the most nearly ideal position any Director of Photography has enjoyed since the halycon days when D. W. Griffith and Billy Bitzer [G. W. Bitzer] were between them creating the basic technique of the screen. For Toland, as Chief Cinematographer for Samuel Goldwyn, enjoys the confidence of a producer whose chief aim is to turn out the most nearly flawless productions possible. Inevitably, Toland’s hand is more free than most; he is able to participate actively not alone in the actual shooting of Goldwyn productions, but to a surprising extent in shaping and completing them as well. Most important of all, he is able to experiment, both technically and artistically, on a scale impossible where cinematographer and producer alike are bound by the restrictions of a rigid schedule and budget.
One of those experiments, first tried out on a conservative scale in scattered scenes for Wuthering Heights, led to the Citizen Kane pan-focus technique. But he has made many others, in other directions. He was among the first, for example, to utilize Super-XX negative as a production emulsion, and among the first, too, to enthusiastically endorse today’s fast films when they made their bow some four years ago. He was among the first, if not actually the first top-flight cinematographer to experiment with coated lenses and to stake his photographic reputation on their performance on an important production.
Gregg Toland himself is as unlike the popular conception of a top-rank director of photography as can easily be imagined. For one thing, he is young. The official records of the A.S.C. give his age as only 37, which makes him almost without question the youngest of the industry’s ace cinematographers. Slim and rather slightly built, he carries himself with a slight stoop which makes him seem at once smaller and older than he really is, and probably indicates, as well, something of the tremendous burden of responsibility that rests on his shoulders.
He is, I should say, very fully conscious of that responsibility. He throws himself into his work with the same tensely nervous energy that characterizes so many of the photographic leaders of the industry. Indeed, he gives the impression of being physically tired — until you get him started talking about his work. Then he brightens up, flashes a disarmingly youthful smile, and speaks with almost boyish enthusiasm about this idea or that he is working with.
He’s keenly conscious, too, of the vital part a director of photography can play in preparing and making a picture if the studio heads will only realize he can be more than merely a photographer. If you know him well, you sense a consuming desire on his part to make the opportunities and acclaim that have come to him as an individual help “sell” the camera profession as a whole not only to the public, but to the industry itself.
His own association with Goldwyn, Orson Welles, Howard Hughes and other outstanding producers has given him unusual opportunities not only to dare to do the unusual in camerawork, but to put the imprint of his picture-trained mind on the making and presentation of every production with which he is associated. But — and you can feel him mentally underscoring this — he isn’t the only cinematographer capable of playing such a part in the planning and realization of a film. There are many other directors of photography who, granted similar opportunities, could contribute just as outstandingly to making their productions better examples of screen entertainment. What he does in this direction, he hopes, will help give some of those others a chance by making other producers ask themselves. “If Sam Goldwyn gets so much help by giving Gregg Toland a chance to take part in things not ordinarily connected with cinematography, why can’t I help my pictures the same way by letting my cinematographer do the same thing?”
A few weeks ago, he signed what is reputed to be the biggest contract — in money and in professional stature, as well — ever signed by a cinematographer. And his reaction, as he expressed it to me, was not so much satisfaction on his own account, but the hope that once the word got around, some of the other members of his profession might have at least an entering wedge for making similar agreements, to the end that the camera profession as a whole might move up to a professional standing more commensurate with what it deserves.
He felt, too, that cinematographers, as a whole, are inclined to stay too close to their own work and problems. “Of course,” he remarked, “we have a chance to get together at A.S.C. meetings, to talk over what we’re doing. But I don’t think that’s enough. I’d like to get together an informal little group of cinematographers who are thoughtfully interested in their work, and plan things so that when any one of us was between pictures, we would make it a point to visit the others’ sets — not just to come in and say hello, but to spend half a day or a day at a time, just watching how the other fellow works, reviving your own viewpoint by absorbing a bit of your friends’. I know I’d benefit by occasionally getting away from Gregg Toland’s viewpoint and ideas, and seeing how, say, Arthur Miller, or Jimmie Howe, or Charlie Lang or Bill Daniels [James Wong Howe (黃宗霑) | Charles Lang | William H. Daniels] handled things. And I’m sure they’d benefit in the same way by visiting each other, and exchanging practical ideas that way.”
But for the present, that idea of Toland’s is distinctly in the future. This last year, with his close friend, director John Ford, he was one of the prime movers in organizing “Hollywood’s Own” Naval reserve photographic unit. And with America’s entry into the war, he changed quickly into uniform, gathered his crew about him, and reported for active service. As Lieutenant Toland, U.S.N., he is, with several of Hollywood’s other outstanding photographic aces, “on location” with Uncle Sam — “for duration!”
End.
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see also entries of the Aces of the Camera series
Collection: American Cinematographer January 1942