Favorite Forgotten Films

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Robert Primes, ASC

In my opinion, one of the great masterpieces of black & white cinematography is The Fugitive , directed by John Ford in 1947 and photographed by Gabriel Figueroa, the great Mexican cinematographer who was honored with the ASC International Award in 1994.

Henry Fonda plays a saintly priest who is hunted by a ruthless military government intent on ridding the country of religion. It is photographed as dramatically as possible with heroic compositions, high, low and wide angles, magnificent shafts of back-light, symbolic shadows of the cross, etc.

I was fortunate to be able to talk with Mr. Figueroa at the first Madrid Imagen festival of cinematography in Madrid last year. He was present at an exhibition of stunning 8x10 stills made from Cinex strips of his films. He recounted how John Ford had heard that he liked to set the shots, rather than the director. Ford evidently agreed and was delighted when Figueroa would put the camera on the ground and shoot a between the feet close-up instead of a conventional over the shoulder.

If you can see a projected print of The Fugitive, do it. You will be seeing about 100 times as much visual data as a television image as well as greater dynamic and tonal range. If you can't see a print, try to get a laserdisc because the quality is generally far better than those loathsome VHS atrocities.