Nicholas Musuraca
Nicholas Musuraca , also Nick Musuraca (born October 25, 1892 in Riace , Italy , † September 3, 1975 in Los Angeles , California , USA ) was an Italian-born cameraman in Hollywood film with some significant achievements in the 1940s.
Life
Above all, Musuraca has made a name for himself as a black and white photographer in the service of RKO Pictures , influenced by German film expressionism of the 1920s . Musuraca came across film through the film pioneer J. Stuart Blackton , for whom he had worked as a chauffeur in the early 1910s. He began his real career in 1913 as a projectionist. In the following years he worked as a film editor and assistant director at the New York production company Vitagraph . In 1918 Nicholas Musuraca became a simple cameraman, and five years later he was allowed to shoot a film for the first time as chief cameraman.
Up until the late 1930s, Musuraca shot B and C films continuously , including a wealth of Western series, comedies and melodramas. After he was allowed to photograph Mamoulian's adaptation of Clifford Odets ' play Golden Boy at the side of his famous colleague Karl Freund Rouben in 1939 , Musuraca was also able to work on higher quality films. Above all, his atmospheric black and white photography of Jacques Tourneur's horror classic Cat People , in which Musuraca was able to demonstrate his remarkable talent for light and shadow effects, earned him recognition. He then photographed Robert Siodmak's thriller The Spiral Staircase in 1945 . This time, too, his seemingly expressionistic tracking shots evoked subliminal dangers and evocative moods. Of his later work, the camera work on Robert Wise's western Night on the Prairie and George Stevens' family melodrama The Secret of a Mother are particularly noteworthy. For this achievement Musuraca received an Oscar nomination in 1949 .
Nicholas Musuraca also photographed a number of routine wests with Tim Holt and two side works by Fritz Lang in the early 1950s . Since leaving the cinema in 1958, Nicholas Musuraca has focused on working for television, primarily shooting a number of series. In 1966 he retired into private life.
Filmography
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literature
- Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 600.
Web links
- Nicholas Musuraca in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Other sources mention October 28 and October 20
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Musuraca, Nicholas |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Musuraca, Nick |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian-American cameraman |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 25, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Riace , Italy |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd September 1975 |
| Place of death | Los Angeles , California, United States |