Kennedy on the campaign trail

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

14 October

Not just because the documentary was covered in an edition of the Festival booklet TAKE ONE, I have relatively little to say about The Camera That Changed the World. The side of it that looked at the development of handheld cameras at around the same time in the States and in France, rather than the applications to which they were then put, was certainly made much more entertaining and less dry by the appearance of the delightfully eccentric Jean-Pierre Beauviala, who also spoke far more to the point than some of the others.

As to why a camera cut down from a model intended to be used on a tripod and which still weighed 30lb (the Auricon in the States) should ever have been a competitor for the ultralight Éclair, which was, I understand, engineered from scratch to be so, I could not figure. (Weight was not the only difference, as the Auricon had to be directed from the shoulder, and blind, at the intended subject, whereas I believe that the Éclair had an eyepiece.) And the wording of the title almost leads you to believe that there was one camera, not two...

However, although the preference for cinematographers to use one over the other was certainly touched upon, it was not in a very obvious or, to my mind, convincing way: that said, it did not seem to be a matter of mere patriotism, but to have some basis in experience of using the equipment, which, I do not think, was sufficiently explored (or capable of being) in the 62 minutes given to the topic.

Since the ambitions of the film were also to do justice to accounting for the first documentary uses to which the pioneers put their new machines, this was quite a tall order. Here, also, the commentary became unnecessarily emphatic (by way of repetition) in stating that, because the new cameras were light enough to carry, they could 'go with the action' and follow it into places that were inaccesible to the static models: if we had not grasped that this was the purpose of developing them, we would surely have been napping!

However, showing footage from the film Primary, which John F. Kennedy allowed Robert Drew's team in the States to make on the campaign trail (and, in a rather enigmatic formula, that he would not contact Drew, unless his answer to the filming were 'no') demonstrated this point admirably: in addition to what else we saw, the well-known long take, following Kennedy through a large group in a convention hall (full of people, all of whom wanted to shake his hand), was chief amongst the evidence.

As someone else had commented before I saw the film (possibly the Festival's own David Perilli, although I only recall speaking to him about the film afterwards), the French developers / film-makers were not given equal billing: we always heard about Drew and what he wanted to achieve first, and, in telling us about the filming of the first project (certainly not in terms of showing us what was shot, although various people involved in the project were shown interviewed), the film-makers in France got the raw deal.

All this apart, the film paired well with Pennebaker's film Dont [sic] Look Back about Dylan's UK tour in 1965, filmed by Pennebaker himself and others (using the Auricon), with which it was screened. (It could almost have been made too thin in places to allow the pairing not to be too long...)


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Festival publications (1)

More views of - or at (or before) - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


9 September

As well as the very well-presented Festival brochure (thanks to Tony Jones and his team), full of interesting information about what is showing, when, where, and what it will cost*, and available at the Picturehouse (or to download as a PDF file on the home-page) or at:
http://issuu.com/camfilmtrust/docs/cff31_brochure?mode=embed


there is also TAKE ONE, an eight-page A5 booklet, the first issue of which I found had come out to-day (and also available at the Picturehouse - or should I refer to it as Festival Central?).

I think that it is going replace the Festival Daily from previous years, and will appear less frequently (but I undertand that the on-line reviews are still going to be added every day).

As I have not yet found the text of the booklet on the Festival web-site**, I shall attempt to give a flavour of it later in lieu of a link, but can say for now that, amongst other things, it mentions:

* Dimensions (the whole inside front cover)

* Ace In The Hole (a half-page with Citizen Kane)

* Information about Jos Stelling (with a large photo) and the screening / Q&A

* Robin Hood (a full page - already shown under Films in the Forest, and now to be screened in Trinity College)

* The Camera That Changed The World (two-thirds of a page)


More of TAKE ONE (issue one) in due course - and, if there is one, a link... (now below**)



*Again, I recommend the Festival passes. For staff and customers alike, it was all a bit confusing at first, but it can now be stated: passes are on sale for £25, £50 or £75 (the last one is Blue, so I guess that the other two, in order, are Red and White, but just as easy to specify the value, I think), and you then receives that amount of credit.

Credit can only be used on festival screenings, so it is important to estimate accurately (not too much, not too little) how much will be spent overall. The chosen credit is stored on a card to spend by buying tickets, which (in addition to the discount from Picturehouse membership) gives, respectively, 20%, 25% and 30% off the ticket-price.

With the Blue card (and probably the £50 card, because some information appears contradictory), the holder also gets free tea and coffee at the bar, which - although not free beer - cannot be bad!


**Well, it's supposed to be there, and it has its own web-page, but it isn't just now:

http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/review/festival-daily-online/