James Wong Howe

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Wong Howe , actually Wong Tung Jim ( Chinese  黃宗 霑  /  黄宗 霑 , Pinyin Huáng Zōngzhān , born August 28, 1899 in Guangzhou , China ; † July 12, 1976 in Hollywood , Los Angeles , California ), was an American cameraman . In film titles, his name is occasionally given as "James Howe".

Life and movies

James Wong Howe was born in southern China to Wong How. His father, who had some success as a shopkeeper in America, was only able to catch up with his son in 1904 due to the legal situation ( Chinese Exclusion Act ).

After a few attempts as a boxer, Howe finally became a photographer and made the acquaintance of a cameraman who helped him clean up the cutting room of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation . From there he worked his way up to director Cecil B. DeMille's slate boy . After Paramount Pictures gradually emerged from the Famous Players in 1914 , Howe rose from camera assistant to operating cameraman within four years. In 1923 he did his first independent camerawork as director of photography : on the recommendation of actress Mary Miles Minter , he was involved in two of her productions that made the star look very advantageous.

Among the better known films at Paramount was working on the Clara Bow comedy mantrap . In 1927, his reputation as a cameraman who was more imaginative and sophisticated with light than most of his colleagues was so solid that he went into business for himself. In 1928 he directed the films Laugh, Clown, Laugh with Lon Chaney and Loretta Young and Four Walls with Joan Crawford and John Gilbert for MGM . From 1931 he also worked for the old Fox studios on the side. Howe was also indirectly involved in the film Shanghai Express : during a trip to China he had made film recordings that he originally wanted to use for his own directorial work, in order to finally sell the material to Paramount. Josef von Sternberg then used the archive material in the said film.

Highlights of his work were the adventure film The Prisoner of Zenda ( The Prisoner of Zenda ), where he was in 1937 before the problem is that both lead actor Ronald Colman and Madeleine Carroll wanted to keep her left side of the face in the camera and Algiers from the following year. The romantic melodrama, also directed by John Cromwell , was Hedy Lamarr's American debut , and Howe received the actress so skillfully that she lived up to her reputation as the most beautiful woman in the world .

Howe was a specialist in the use of shadows and subdued brightness, which earned him the nickname low-key Hoe, and one of the first cameramen in Hollywood to work with extreme depth of field, where the foreground and background are equally sharp. He often used this means to characterize people in the foreground through the background - e.g. B. in the western Persecuted , in which the background of a barren desert landscape explains the state of mind of a tortured man in the front of the picture.

However, his ideas did not always go down so well with the producers. When filming the film Whipsaw with Myrna Loy , Howe chose a strong chiaroscuro lighting to make Myrna Loy, who, according to the script, had just sat up all night with a sick woman, look exhausted. Studio boss Louis B. Mayer , who had the daily rushes shown for important films , called Howe over and asked him if he was possibly ailing, after all, he had made Myrna Loy look like an old woman. Howe explained his concept and was kicked out of the office with one of the infamous Mayer outbursts. The scene was re-recorded as the studio wanted and Loy looked perfectly made up in the mirror and sighed: "I look terrible."

James Wong Howe was one of the first Asian artists to achieve significant careers in film. He maintained a long-standing partnership with the author Sanora Babb , a white woman, he only in 1949, after the abolition of the California intermarriage could -Verbots marry. Howe was a cousin of actress Anna May Wong .

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Oscar
  • 1938: Algiers - nomination
  • 1940: Abe Lincoln in Illinois - nomination
  • 1942: King's Row - nomination
  • 1943: The North Star nomination
  • 1943: Airforce nomination
  • 1955: The Rose Tattoo - Oscar for Best Cinematographer
  • 1958: The Old Man and the Sea - nomination
  • 1963: The wildest among a thousand - Oscar for best cameraman
  • 1966: The Man Who Lived Twice ( Seconds ) nomination
  • 1975: Funny Lady nomination
Laurel Award

Honors

On August 28, 2020, Howe was honored with a Google Doodle for his 118th birthday .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Wong Howe's 118th birthday. August 28, 2017, accessed on August 22, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Howe, James Wong
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wong Tung Jim (real name); v = 黄宗 霑 (Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Guangzhou , China
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1976
Place of death Hollywood , Los Angeles , California