ONE
He’s a world traveler who has created photo books on the ruins of Anghor Wat in Cambodia, and of the tympana sculptures in Romanesque churches from Norway to Coptic Egypt—but he lives in the same apartment in Paris’ 12th arrondissement where he was born in 1920. He is a photo autodidact who did not acquire his first camera until he was over thirty years old—yet he became the set photographer for many of the French New Wave films from 1958 to 1968. At a time when most photojournalists were shooting with 35mm Leicas—he chose a much larger format 2 ¼ Rolliflex. He is, even today, according to writer Marc Vernet, unknown by the general public in France—anonymous, even though he created dozens of the most iconic movie photographs of that era, images that are embedded in the film consciousness of generations of his countrymen. He fell into motion picture set photography by an accident of geography—but abandoned it when he became discontented with the poor remuneration and the struggle to control his own work. This happened during a time when the movement’s Young Turk critic/directors were defining and practicing the “politique des auteurs” for themselves and for marginalized American filmmakers—yet he, a “stills man,” possessed little authorship of his creations. These are some of the intriguing dichotomies in the career of Raymond Cauchetier.
Continue reading ‘Raymond Cauchetier’s “New Wave” — Part One’
Recent Comments