Jimmy Stewart embarks on a reluctant tour through cinema’s looking glass, cross-referencing film maestros Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick.
“The Red Drum Getaway” is the stuff of celluloid dreams –and digital nightmares.
Jimmy Stewart
“The Red Drum Getaway” is the stuff of celluloid dreams –and digital nightmares.
Looking at contact sheet is always a cinematic experience, especially when the images are classic Hollywood movies. You are looking through the photographer’s eyes as they search for the perfect shot. In the classic Hollywood era, behind-the-scenes photos were carefully vetted for marketing purposes and unapproved shots were never to be seen again.Hollywood Frame by Frame lays out hundreds of never-published photos from the sets of some of the most iconic films of the twentieth century. From Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Bus Stop and Raging Bull this book is a real treasure trove of the unseen silver screen. In the 30s, a “unit photographer” was a job on most projects to provide images for the growing media demand for celeb news. But most of the time the contact sheets were simply chucked. As photographer Bruce McBroom, who shot stills on the sets of films such as What’s Up Doc? and The Godfather Part II puts it:
“Most of Hollywood history has survived because someone dug it out of the trash.”
You can get Hollywood Frame by Frame by Princeton Architectural Press here. Good Christmas gift.
Slim Aarons moved to California after WWII and began photographing celebrities. He never used a stylist, or a makeup artist. He made his career out of what he called “photographing attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.” Toward the end of his long life (he died in 2006 at 90) he said “I knew everyone. They would invite me to one of their parties because they knew I wouldn’t hurt them. I was one of them.” Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, Rear Window, whose main character is a photographer played by Jimmy Stewart, was set in an apartment supposedly based on Aarons’ apartment. Staley-Wise Gallery in New York has just mounted “A Man For All Season’s” with some of Aarons most famous pictures, which just get better with the passing of time. Through June 28. Staley-Wise 560 Broadway, New York.