Aces of the Camera — Arthur Edeson (1942) 🇺🇸
Aces of the Camera XXII: Arthur Edeson, A.S.C.
by Walter Blanchard
Arthur Edeson, A.S.C., didn’t intend to become a cinematographer when he made his start in the industry some thirty years ago. But since the advice of a far-sighted friend put him on the right side of the camera, he has carved out a career as one of the all-time “aces” of the camera profession. He has probably photographed more real, honest-to-goodness million-dollar pictures than any other man in the world. Within the last twenty years alone, he can point to a list of some 34 pictures which represent an aggregate production investment of more than $35,000,000. Among them are some of the most memorable films — both silent and sound — of cinema history; others are remembered by showman as being among the industry’s top money-makers. All of them stand out as memorably well-photographed pictures in their respective periods.
Among the silent films you can mention three of Doug Fairbanks, Sr.’s [Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.], finest films, The Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, and The Thief of Bagdad.
Among Edeson’s sound-film achievements are In Old Arizona, the first outdoor “talkie;” The Cock-Eyed World, one of the most successful pictures to ever hit the box-office; All Quiet on the Western Front; The Big Trail, which Edeson photographed on the now happily forgotten 70mm. “Grandeur” film; and Mutiny on the Bounty.
Edeson’s versatility is indicated by the fact that he has filmed some of the best-remembered horror films (always a cinematographer’s favorite, since they give such opportunities to play around with effect-lightings) as The Invisible Man, and Frankenstein, as well as a long succession of the fast-paced Jimmie Cagney–Pat O’Brien Army and Navy “action” pictures.
More recently, Edeson’s camera has turned out such films as They Drive by Night; The Maltese Falcon; the battle scenes for Sergeant York; Across the Pacific; and Casablanca. He has just been assigned to direct the photography of Warners’ big musical, Thank Your Lucky Stars, which represents an almost incalculable investment in celluloid reputations to be made or marred by the camera.
But back in 1910, when Arthur Edeson first ventured into the moving picture business, he certainly had no visions of a career like this. True, he was a successful portrait photographer in New York, but overwork and the peculiar feast-or-famine conditions of portrait photography — wondering where your next dollar is coming from for ten months of the year, then slaving day and night for two months to try to catch up with the Christmas-portrait rush — had given him an urge to get out of the rut and into some new line of work.
So one fine day he went out to the old Éclair Studio at Fort Lee, N. J., and applied for a job. A least, he started to apply. While he was sitting in the outer office, waiting to see somebody, a man came in and, pointing successively to several of the men who were sitting there waiting, said, “I’ll take you — and you — and you. Come with me.”
Arthur was one of those selected. And once inside the mysterious recesses of the studio, he found he had been hired — as an actor! Luckily, acting wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him, for he had done some amateur and semi-professional work presenting dramatic recitations from time to time. So, as he tells it today, he slipped easily into it, and before long was an established and successful member of the studio’s acting company.
But while movie-acting was interesting, he couldn’t quite get the love for photography out of his system. After a while, in his spare time, he began to make portraits of his fellow-actors. When the troupe went out on location, he’d snap between-scenes portraits outdoors; sometimes, he’d make more conventional portraits in an unused corner of the studio stage. At nights he would develop the negatives and make the prints in an improvised darkroom at home.
Those portraits must have been good, for they caught the eye of one of the studio’s ace cameramen. After looking at several of them, the veteran told Edeson, “You’re wasting your time as an actor, son. Why don’t you switch over to the other side of the camera, where your ability will mean more, and you can be sure of a longer and steadier career?”
Art thought the idea was good. And when, not long after, his friend persuaded the Éclair powers that be to offer Art the post of official studio portrait photographer he accepted with alacrity. He cleared out a corner of the studio laboratory’s hypo-room to serve as a darkroom for his still work, and snapped his exposures on the studio stages whenever and wherever he could.
And from the start, his portraits “clicked.”
But the more Edeson saw of the picture business, the more clearly he saw that the job he wanted was behind a motion picture camera. Getting there, though, was another matter. There was no possibility of wangling a job as an assistant cameraman, and thence working his way up to First Cameraman. For, thirty years ago there were no assistant cameramen. The cameraman — there was only one to a troupe — did everything. He loaded and unloaded the camera, photographed the scenes, and nearly always edited the picture as well. In his spare time he also shot the stills and developed them.
Moreover, that was in the days of the “trust” — the Motion Picture Patents Company. And whether your studio was a licensed member of the trust, or an outlawed “independent” using presumably unlicensed equipment, the camera — and especially its interior — had to be a profound secret. If an outsider got even a glimpse of the inner workings of a movie camera that glimpse might, if it were a camera of one of the “trust” companies, let out trade secrets to a potential enemy spy; if the camera belonged to an independent, a peek at its mechanism might bring a visit from the “trust’s” strongarm detectives, resulting in a wrecked camera, and maybe a lawsuit, to boot.
None the less, Edeson managed to learn a great deal about cinematography as it was then practiced. In this, he learned partly from observation, and partly from the help of his friend, John Vanderbrook who, he points out, was one of the really great cameramen of that pioneer era.
Eventually, Edeson got a chance as a cameraman. One of the cameramen fell sick during a picture, and at Vanderbrook’s suggestion, still-man Edeson was asked to pinch-hit and finish the picture. He did it successfully — and from then on, he was one of Éclair’s cameramen.
He had the unique distinction of being the only American cameraman in the employ of this French firm. In those pioneer days before World War I, French directors and French cameramen dominated the creative side of the industry; any studio which had any professional pretentions at all had at least one French director and one French cameraman to lend a touch of éclat and genius to its productions. The Éclair studio being an American branch of a French firm (which, by the way, was still operating in France up to the arrival of the Nazis) had Frenchmen in almost all of the key creative posts. Edeson’s success as a cameraman under these circumstances was therefore a tremendous tribute to his ability.
At any rate, he so pleased Éclair’s owner, M. Jourjon [Charles Jourjon], that he became one of Éclair’s leading cameramen.
The work wasn’t without its difficulties, however. That was the day when /:64 definition and flat lighting were the rules of the day. Edeson began to introduce some of the lighting ideas he had learned in his portrait work — a suggestion of modelling here, an artistically placed shadow there. And being trained in portrait work, his work tended to the softer, portrait-like quality he had used in his still work.
“That,” he says, “was so completely out of line with what they considered good cinematography in those days that I had to use all sorts of salesmanship to convince them it was good camerawork.
“Privately, I wasn’t so sure. In my spare time I did a lot of experimenting, and I just never could get anything critically sharp. While I argued the artistic merits of softness, I did a lot of wondering as to what was the matter.
“In time, I found out. Another producer — he was Jules Brulatour, by the way — was about to make a very special picture. He wanted my friend Vanderbrook; but Vanderbrook was tied up on an assignment for Éclair, and recommended me.
“The camera provided for this picture was equipped with an unusually fine lens — a Goerz Heliar, I believe. Using it, I discovered that my other lens had been defective, inherently unable to produce a really crisp image. I never forgot that first striking lesson in the difference that exists between individual lenses. From then on, I made it a point to study lenses, and learned how to suit the optical qualities of each lens to the job in hand.”
This first big assignment of Edeson’s was a made-to-order opportunity for a cameraman. Most of the picture was filmed on location in the south, with almost perfect weather conditions, and picturesque locations with magnolias, Spanish moss, and everything a cameraman could ask for pictorial photography. Edeson made the most of it, and turned in a picture so spectacularly beautiful that producer Brulatour was delighted. And when, not long after, the American Éclair company was reorganized as the World Film Co., with Brulatour at its head, Arthur Edeson was recognized as one of the organization’s ace cameramen.
He was assigned particularly to photograph the productions of Clara Kimball Young, one of the industry’s biggest stars. And when Miss Young left World to form her own Company, he went with her. When her organization moved to the West Coast in 1915, Edeson, too, came west.
In the East, he had been active in the Nation’s first organization of motion picture cameramen, the Cinema Camera Club; when he came to Hollywood, he took an active part in an affiliated Western organization, first known as the Static Club, and later as the Cinema Camera Club of California. And when, in 1919, this organization was reorganized to form the American Society of Cinematographers, Arthur Edeson was one of the Charter Members of the A.S.C. He has served actively and continuously on the Society’s Board of Governors, and has held almost every office in the Society with the exception of the presidency, which he has repeatedly declined.
In the early ‘20’s, Edeson joined Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.’s producing organization, which was probably the foremost producing- unit in the country. “Working with Doug,” he says, “was one of the great experiences of my life. Doug Fairbanks was an inspiration to everyone who worked with him. We often hear about producers, directors and actors in our business who say they are working toward ‘bigger, better things;’ but all too often it is only disappointing publicity, with no foundation in fact.
“But Doug was really striving to advance motion pictures as an art. He was constantly seeking new and more expressive ways to do things, and he actively welcomed in his organization people who were trying to make similar progress in their own fields.
“Doug had a keen appreciation of the real significance of photography. I don’t mean by that that he insisted blindly on ‘pretty’ photography, regardless of whether or not it fitted the picture. He knew, just as well as any cameraman, that purely pictorial camerawork can sometimes hurt one story just as much as it can help another.
“As an example of this, I remember how we made Robin Hood. Doug, you know, had a unique way of working. He never worked from a script in the formal sense of the word. He would mull things around in his mind for weeks or months until he had the basic story concept worked out mentally to his satisfaction. Then he’d start shooting, working closely with director and cameraman and getting what he wanted, but seldom with anything written down in script form.
“For Robin Hood, the ‘script’ consisted of half-a-dozen lines scrawled on the back of a piece of paper — just rough and almost undecipherable notes as to ‘characters — conflict — intrigue’ etc. The rest was locked in Doug’s brilliant mind. “As we began to get really into the picture, I found myself in a quandary. We had some of the most spectacular sets ever built in Hollywood, and with the costumes, the pageantry, and all, I knew the picture offered some of the most spectacular photographic opportunities any cameraman ever had. But I didn’t know enough about the story to know whether or not I ought to take advantage of them.
“Finally I went to Doug and asked him. ‘Doug,’ I told him, ‘this is a cameraman’s picture if there ever was one. But tell me — if I sock it with everything I’ve got, will your story stand it? I don’t want my photography to overpower the story.’
“Doug told me to go ahead, and I did. And I think the outcome proved he was right, for Robin Hood is still remembered as perhaps Doug’s strongest picture. But I’m sure if he had had a weaker story and weaker characterizations, spectacular camerawork could have submerged them so completely that the picture would have been one of those things everybody would dismiss as being visually beautiful, but without any real punch as a picture.
“It’s the same today. I think one of the most important parts of the cameraman’s job is determining when to let himself go in photographing a picture, and when to hold himself in. If the story or characterizations are weak, he’s got to restrain himself or he’ll weaken the picture. But if the story is strong, he can let himself go photographically and be sure he’ll help the picture.
“And, granting equal story strength, a variety of different visual treatments are possible. A picture like, say, Citizen Kane or The Maltese Falcon will call for strongly modernistic, eye-arresting camerawork. A picture like, say, The Great Waltz, or The Chocolate Soldier, would be ruined by that treatment — they demand a highly pictorial, romanticized touch. And there are always some pictures — you’ll find them in a majority of the ‘B’s — where the camera should be just as inconspicuous as possible, to heighten the illusion of realism, and maybe to keep from overpowering a weak story.
“The best thing, I think, is to strive to keep things always as simple as possible, photographically speaking. The principal things are always your story and actors: if you keep your compositions and lightings simple, placing the accent rather on them than on the camera, or on mere decorativeness, you can’t go very far wrong.”
End.
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Collection: American Cinematographer, November 1942
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see other entries of the Aces of the Camera series