Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff

Jack Cardiff was the cinematographer responsible for filming some of British cinema's most luxuriantly beautiful creations – The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death – before heading off to Hollywood acclaim and a garlanded directorial career of his own. Cardiff passed away last year, but not before becoming the genial subject of this affectionate, even adoring biography, which is part of a season of Cardiff's films at the BFI Southbank in London. Cardiff is hardly an overlooked figure, but the esteem in which he's held by an entire generation of big-league film-makers is obvious, and we're treated to some of the tricks of the pre-digital-era cameraman's trade – such as the way Cardiff painted a snowy sky on a piece of glass to obscure unhelpful studio lighting for the duel scene in War and Peace.