Joseph LaShelle

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Joseph LaShelle (born July 9, 1900 in Los Angeles , † August 20, 1989 in La Jolla , San Diego ; actually Joseph Wellington LaShelle ) was an American cameraman .

LaShelle, a member of the ASC , has a total of nine times for an Oscar nomination and won the trophy in 1945 for his work on Otto Preminger's film noir Laura .

Life

After graduating from Hollywood High School , LaShelle first worked as a laboratory assistant at Paramount Pictures from 1920 to earn money for his studies at Stanford University . When he was promoted to head of the laboratory, he gave up studying and stayed in the film industry.

On the advice of cameraman Charles G. Clarke , LaShelle switched behind the camera in 1925 and became Clarke's assistant, and shortly afterwards second assistant camera. By the early 1930s, LaShelle moved to various studios and worked with Clyde De Vinna , David Kesson and Edward Snyder , among others , until he became Arthur C. Miller's assistant in 1932 . LaShelle's collaboration with Miller began with Raoul Walsh's film Me and my Gal in 1932 and ended in 1943 with Henry King's Das Lied von Bernadette .

Irving Pichel's drama Happy Land from the same year was LaShelle's first film as chief cameraman. A year later, after LaShelle had led the camera for three more films, Otto Preminger hired him as a cameraman for Laura and replaced Lucien Ballard , who was initially intended to be the cameraman. LaShelle, who spent hours planning individual scenes of the film and finding the right lighting, was awarded an Oscar for his efforts to give the film a dream-like atmosphere through the lighting and relatively long takes, including in Lydecker's apartment honored.

LaShelle worked with Preminger on five other films by 1953, including 1945 in Murder on the Wedding Night , a film noir with Dana Andrews in the lead role, and in 1953 in the production of the western River of No Return .

LaShelle received another Oscar nomination in 1949 for the camera work in Henry Koster's drama ... and heaven laughs at it . The film, nominated for a total of seven Oscars, including Elsa Lanchester as Best Supporting Actress , went empty-handed at the trophies award ceremony.

During the 1950s LaShelle shot with directors such as Otto Lang , for whose Oscar-nominated short films Jet Carrier and The First Piano Quartets he directed the camera. LaShelle received his third nomination for an Oscar for best black and white cinematographer in 1952 for My Cousin Rachel , a romance based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier , again directed by Henry Koster, starring Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton , who was chosen for his role as Philip Ashley was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

In the mid-1950s, LaShelle was behind the camera for director Delbert Mann's debut film Marty . Recorded in the National Film Registry in 1994, the film was nominated for a total of eight Academy Awards and received four. LaShelle, who was once again nominated for best cinematography in a black and white film, did not receive the trophy again. James Wong Howe received the award for his work on Daniel Mann's film The Tattooed Rose . At the end of the decade, after the cameraman shot The Nudes and the Dead for Raoul Walsh , he received another Oscar nomination for Joseph Anthony's Many Are Called Best Cinematographer in Black and White in 1959 .

In 1959, LaShelle first worked with Billy Wilder on his film The Apartment . Wilder's comedy, "beautifully shot in a rather gloomy black and white cinemascope" according to one critic , was honored with five Oscars, including Best Picture , and was nominated for ten Oscars. LaShelle came away empty-handed, Robert Surtees received the Oscar for City of Illusions . By the middle of the decade, LaShelle and Wilder worked together on the productions of Das Mädchen Irma la Douce 1963, Küss mich, Dummkopf 1964 and Der Glückspilz . LaShelle was nominated twice for an Oscar in 1964, once together with William H. Daniels , Milton R. Krasner and Charles Lang for That Was the Wild West . In this epic about the conquest of the Wild West , LaShelle filmed the sequence The Civil War , directed by John Ford , as well as the buffalo scenes for the sequence Railroad , directed by George Marshall . The second nomination this year was Wilder's The Girl Irma la Douce . LaShelle was nominated one last time for an Oscar in 1966 for Wilder's Der Glückspilz .

In addition to his work for film, LaShelle also shot a few times for television, such as two episodes for the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1957 . After LaShelle had taken the camera in Gerd Oswald's drama 80 steps to happiness in 1969 , he withdrew from the film business.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers
  2. ^ Gale International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers Volume 1 Films, 4th Edition, 2000
  3. ↑ Frank Lafond in 1001 Films
personal data
SURNAME LaShelle, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES LaShelle, Joseph Wellington (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH los Angeles
DATE OF DEATH August 20, 1989
Place of death San Diego