James Wong Howe: how the great cinematographer shaped Hollywood

James Wong Howe

(1899 – 1976 )

On the set of The Molly Maguires in 1969

James Wong Howe was a Chinese American Cinematographer who worked on over 130 films. He was a master at the use of shadow and was one of the first to use Deep Focus Cinematography, in which both foreground and distant planes remain in focus.

He was born Wong Tung Jim in Taishan , Canton Province (now Guangdong) ,China  on August 28,1899. His father name is Wong Howe, who moved to America that year to work on the Northern Pacific Railway. James Wong Howe's Nationality was American, His wife name was Sanora Babb. He got married to her in 1937 until his death 1976. His married life was little struggling because his marriage wasn't recognized until 1949 in the U.S due to interracial marriage ban & it got finished in 1949. He had to live in different apartment in the same building with his wife. 

He was awarded for the BEST CINEMATOGRAPHER & the awards are as follows:-

·         Nominee  Algiers (1938)

·         Nominee  Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)

·         Nominee  Kings Row (1942)

·         Nominee  The North Star (1943)

·         Nominee  Air Force (1943)

·         Winner     The Rose Tattoo (1955)

·         Nominee  The Old Man & The Sea (1958)

·         Winner     Hud  (1963)

·         Nominee  Seconds (1966)

·         Nominee  Funny Lady (1975)

Howe's earliest DISCOVERY was the use of Black Velvet to make blue eyes show up better on the orthochromatic film stock in use until the early 1920s. Orthochromatic film was "blue blind"; it was sensitive to blue and green light, which showed as white on the developed film. Reds and yellows were darkened. Faced with the problem of actors' eyes appearing washed out or even stark white on film, Howe developed a technique of mounting a frame swathed with black velvet around his camera so that the reflections darkened the actors' eyes enough for them to appear more natural in the developed film.

Howe earned the nickname "Low - Key" because of his penchant for dramatic lighting and deep shadows, a technique that came to be associated with Film Noir. Later in his career, as film-stocks became faster and more sensitive, Howe would continue to experiment with his photography and lighting techniques, such as shooting one scene in The Molly Maguiressolely by candlelight.

Howe also was known for his use of unusual lenses, film stocks, and shooting techniques. In the 1920s, he was an early adopter of the crab dolly, a form of Camera Dolly with four independent wheels and a movable arm to which the camera is attached. For the boxing scenes of  Body & Soul (1947), he entered the boxing ring on roller-skates, carrying an early hand-held camera.Picnic (1955) features a very early example of the Helicopter shot, filmed by the second-unit cinematographer, Haskell Wexler, and planned by Wexler and Howe.

Although the innovation of Deep Focus cinematography is usually associated with Gregg Toland, Howe used it in his first sound film, Transatlantic, ten years before Toland used the technique on Citizen Kane,  For deep focus, the cinematographer narrows the Aperature of the camera lens, and floods the set with light, so that elements in both the foreground and background remain in sharp focus. The technique requires highly sensitive film and was difficult to achieve with early film stocks; Toland, Howe, and Arthur Edeson were among the earliest cinematographers to successfully use it

Howe's best known work was almost entirely in black and white. His two Academy Awards both came during the period when Best Cinematography Oscars were awarded separately for color and black-and-white films. However, he successfully made the transition to color films and earned his first Academy Award nomination for a color film in 1958 for The Old Man & The Sea. He won his second Academy Award for 1963's HUD. His cinematography remained inventive during his later career. For instance, his use of fish-eye and wide-angle lenses in Seconds (1966) helped give an eerie tension to director John Frankenheimer's science fiction movie. After working on The Molly Maquires (1970), Howe's health began to fail and he entered semi-retirement. In 1974, he was well enough to be selected as a replacement cinematographer for Funny Lady. He collapsed during the filming, American Society of Cinematographers president Ernest Laszlo filled in for Howe while he was recovering in the hospital. Funny Lady earned Howe his tenth and final Oscar nomination. Three documentaries were made about Howe during the last two decades of his life.