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“I Never Had Any Interest in Becoming a Cinematographer Until 1965, When I Met Stanley Kubrick”: A Rare Profile of d.p. John Alcott
Here’s a true deep cut, evidently taped off New Jersey’s WNET and now resurrected on the internet. This ’80s profile of d.p. John Alcott (A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon) features a lot of on-set footage of the cinematographer plying his craft; if you’re a big Beastmaster fan, this is for you. If just interested in the Kubrick stories you may want to skip to the 8-minute mark (where the d.p. talks about his initial collaborations with the director) and then to 14:20 or so, where Alcott discusses waiting patiently to capture very particular wind and cloud changes on the set of Barry Lyndon. Marisa Berenson is also on hand to testify to the difficulties of pioneering shooting with natural light, and when the topic changes to The Shining Shelley Duvall’s present as well.
