NESTOR ALMENDROS

GREAT CINEMATOGRAPHERS

#1: Photo by Guillermo Vilela

#3: 1978

NÉSTOR ALMENDROS

Born: 30 October 1930, Barcelona, Spain, as Néstor Almendros Cuyás, as son of writer/pedagogue Herminio Almendros Ibáñez [1898-1974].

Died: 4 March 1992, New York City, N.Y., USA.

Education: Universidad de la Habana [Philosophy and Letters; graduated in 1955]; New York City College [film studies, 1955-56]; Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografica [CSC] [1956-57].

Career: Moved to Havana, Cuba, in 1948 to join his father, a Republican loyalist who had left Spain at the end of the Civil War. In Cuba he made a number of 8mm and 16mm amateur movies and attended Havana University briefly. Co-founder [in 1949] of Cuba's first cine club and film archive. Moved to Rome, Italy, and studied briefly at the CSC. Moved to the USA in the late 1950s and taught Spanish at Vassar for two years and directed Spanish student plays at Middlebury College. Returned to Havana in 1959 when Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista dictatorship. Made several doc's for the Instituto Cubano di Arte en Industria Cinematografica [ICAIC]. Moved to Paris, France, and worked as a teacher and still ph.

Ph commercials dir by Joël Séria, J. Leberre, Richard Avedon, Martin Scorsese, a.o.

Antonio Gosálvez wrote the book 'Néstor Almendros en Sevilla' [1999, Filmoteca de Andalucía]. Published his autobiography, 'Un homme à la caméra/A Man with a Camera', in 1980.

Co-signed an Open Letter to Fidel Castro in The New York Review of Books [02.02.1989].

Human Rights Watch and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, created the 'Nestor Almendros Prize' for courage and commitment in human rights filmmaking. The Italian Istituto Cinematografico dell'Aquila and the AIC created the 'Nestor Almendros Award' for young or emerging directors of photography.

Was a member of the ASC.

Appeared in the doc 'Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography' [1991].

Awards: As doph: NSFC Award [1971] for 'L'enfant sauvage'; NSFC Award [1971] for 'Ma nuit chez Maud'; 'Oscar' AA [1978], LAFCA Award [1978], BSC Award nom [1979] & NSFC Award [1979] for 'Days of Heaven'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1979] for 'Kramer vs. Kramer'; 'César' Award nom [1979] for 'La chambre verte'; 'César' Award nom [1980] for 'Perceval le Gallois'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1981] for 'The Blue Lagoon'; 'César' Award [1981] for 'Le dernier métro'; NYFCC Award [1982] & 'Oscar' AA nom [1983] for 'Sophie's Choice'.

As dir: San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay FF 'Audience Award' [1984; shared] for 'Mauvaise conduite'; International Documentary Association Award [1988; shared] for 'Nadie escuchaba'.

#2: With Susan Sontag [1983] - photo Thys Ockersen Archive

'When I think of cinematographer Nestor Almendros's work on 'Sophie's Choice', I see Meryl Streep's translucent skin. I see a Brooklyn boarding house in the crisp afternoon sunlight, the monochromed evil of a Nazi rail yard, with searchlights scanning the faces of the doomed. When I watched 'Sophie's Choice' again recently, I saw something else: an attitude of gravity, a burnished intelligence in the sets, the performance, and the photography that seems now, when compared to the routine cacophony of crap that passes for movies nowadays, to be some relic of a lost tribe, an example of the kind of moviemaking that slowed down, reached high, and moved us. I mourn that type of movie, and that depth of intelligence. And I mourn the fading of Nestor Almendros' light. He was an artist of deep integrity, who believed the most beautiful light was natural light. […] I can't think of a single explosion in any of the films he shot, not a single matte painting, not one special effect that was not done 'in the camera'. Perhaps he was just lucky to work in a time before digital enhancement, before the 12-second attention span, before special effects became more interesting to look at than the human face. But there is something more - he was always true to a light's source, true to the emotion evoked by the cast and color of light as it changed through the day. He rejected the typical lighting schemes of the '40s and '50s, which called for key lights, backlight, fills and highlights. He preferred to first capture or augment existing light, then shape and bend it. He respected light's truth-telling element, the way it can expose and conceal. […] He will always be remembered as a cinematographer of absolute truth. He discovered beauty in the sepulchral darkness of the human face, and disquiet in the still life of a landscape. The next time I have to sit through a Hollywood blockbuster [or, let's face it, even an indie with a budget] and endure that inevitable onslaught of pyrotechnics, blue strobes, noirish shafts of hard light, overlit interiors and those dime-a-dozen smoke-filled slow-motion establishing shots, I will close my eyes and mourn the passing of Nestor Almendros, a true master of light.' [From article by Rustin Thompson in 'MovieMaker Magazine', #29, July 1998.]

FILMS
1950	Una confusión cotidiana/An Everyday Confusion [Nestor Almendros & Tomás Gutiérrez Alea] 8mm/b&w; short/?m
1951	Cimarrón [Plácido González Gómez] 16mm/c; short/?m
*1951*	La boticaria [Nestor Almendros] 8mm/b&w; unfinished short film
1953	Un monólogo de Hamlet [Nestor Almendros & Ramón Suárez] 16mm/b&w; cph: Ramón Suárez
1953	Sabá [Nestor Almendros] 16mm/c
*195?*	Nunca [Nestor Almendros] 16mm/c; unfinished
1956	The Mount of Luna [Nestor Almendros] 16mm/b&w; exp short/7m
1958	58-59 [Nestor Almendros] 16mm/b&w; doc (New Year's Eve in New York City)/8m; + scrpl
1959	Construcciones rurales [Humberto Arenal] 16mm/b&w; doc/10m
1960	El agua [Manuel Octavio Gómez Martinez de Lahidalga] 16mm/b&w; doc/?m
1960	El tomate [Fausto Canel] 16mm/b&w; doc/?m
1960	Cooperativas agropecuarias [Fausto Canel] 16mm/b&w; doc/?m
1960	El tabaco [Humberto Arenal] 16mm/b&w; doc/?m; prod ICAIC
1960	Asamblea general [Tomás Gutiérrez Alea] b&w; doc/14m; cph: Ramón Suárez, Jorge Haydú, Luis Marzoa, a.o.; prod ICAIC
1960	Carnet de viaje/Travel Notebook [Joris Ivens] b&w; doc/34m; uncred cph; ph: Jorge Herrera & Ramón Suárez

1960	Gente en la playa/Sunday by the Sea/People of the Beach [Néstor Almendros] 16mm/b&w; doc/12m; + scrpl
1961	La tumba francesca [Nestor Almendros & Orlando Jiménez Leal] 16mm/b&w; doc/8m; cph: O. Jiménez Leal; + scrpl
1964	Nadja à Paris [Eric Rohmer] 16mm/b&w; doc/13m
1964	Pour mon anniversaire [Pierre-Richard Bré] 16mm/?; short/15m; cph: ?
1964	Paris vu par.../Six in Paris [1. Jean Douchet ('Saint-Germain-des-Prés'), 2. Jean Rouch ('Gare du Nord'), 3. Jean-Daniel Pollet ('Rue Saint-Denis'), 4. Éric Rohmer ('Place de l'Étoile'), 5. Jean-Luc Godard ('Montparnasse et Levallois') & 6. Claude Chabrol ('La Muette')] 16mm-35bu/c; 6 seg; ph seg 1 (18m), cph seg 4 (15m) & addph seg 5 (14m); other ph: Étienne Becker (seg 2 & cph seg 4), Alain Levent (seg 3 & cph seg 4), Albert Maysles (seg 5 & cph seg 6) & Jean Rabier (cph seg 6); Almendros' name does not appear in the credits because he did not have a work permit
1965	Le sursistaire [Serge Huet] 16mm/b&w; short/15m
1965	Une étudiante d'aujourd'hui [Eric Rohmer] 16mm/b&w; doc/13m
1965	[Les mauvaises fréquentations:] Le père Noël a les yeux bleus [Jean Eustache] b&w; short/47m; ph for one day; cph: Daniel Lacambre & Philippe Théaudière
1966	Loin des yeux [Claude Depêche] ?; short/?m
1966	L'insuffisance mitrale [Marie-José Weber] ?; short/?m

1966	Six contes moraux - IV - La collectionneuse/The Collector [Eric Rohmer] c; + small part
1967	The Wild Racers [Daniel Haller & (uncred) Roger Corman] c; 2uc: Daniel Lacambre; addph (Holland): Alex Boon
1967	Tuset Street [Jorge Grau & Luis Marquina] c; uncred cph; ph: Alejandro Ulloa (finished the film)
1968	La fermière à Montfauçon [Eric Rohmer] 16mm/c; short/13m
*1968*	La méduse [Jacques Rozier] unfinished
1968	More [Barbet Schroeder] c; + art dir
1969	Ma nuit chez Maud/My Night at Maud's [Eric Rohmer] b&w

[Left] with François Truffaut - "L'enfant sauvage"

1969	L'enfant sauvage/The Wild Child/The Wild Boy [François Truffaut] b&w
1969	Des bleuets dans la tête [Gérard Brach] c; short/600mtr
1969	Gun Runner/The Gunrunners [Richard Compton] c; cph: Harold Archambault; as John Nestor
1969	Paddy [Daniel Haller] c; uncred cph; ph: Daniel Lacambre
1969	El baston [Nestor Almendros] c; short/12m; + scrpl
1970	Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board [François Truffaut] c

1970	Six contes moraux - V - Le genou de Claire/Claire's Knee [Eric Rohmer] c
1971	Les deux anglaises et le continent/Two English Girls/Anne and Muriel [François Truffaut] c
1971	Sing-Sing [Barbet Schroeder] 16mm/c; ethnological doc/13m
1971	Le repas rituel/Le rite du cochon [Barbet Schroeder] 16mm/c; ethnological doc/15m
1971	Maquillages [Barbet Schroeder] 16mm/c; ethnological doc/13m
1971	Le cochon aux patates douces [Barbet Schroeder] 16mm/c; ethnological doc/12m
1971	La vallée/The Valley [, Obscured by Clouds] [Barbet Schroeder] ts/c
1972	Les praticables de Jean Dubuffet [Jacques Scandelari & Daniel Cordier] c; doc/15m; cph: Henri Szap
1972	L'amour, l'après-midi/Love in the Afternoon/Chloe in the Afternoon [Eric Rohmer] c

With dir Henri Graziani [right] - "Poil de carotte"

1972	Poil de carotte [Henri Graziani] c
1973	L'oiseau rare/A Rare Bird [Jean-Claude Brialy] c
1973	Femmes au soleil/15 août [Liliane Dreyfus] c
1973	La gueule ouverte [Maurice Pialat] c
1973	Général Idi Amin Dada, autoportrait/General Amin [Barbet Schroeder] 16mm-35bu/c; doc/86m
1973	The Gentleman Tramp [Richard Patterson & Peter Bogdanovich] b&w-c; doc/78m; ph Switzerland seq; addph: Bruce Logan; finished in 1975
1974	Born to Kill/Cockfighter/Wild Drifter/Gamblin' Man [Monte Hellman] c; 2uc: Allen Facemire
1974	Mes petites amoureuses [Jean Eustache] c
1975	L'histoire d'Adèle H./The Story of Adele H. [François Truffaut] c
1975	Maîtresse/Mistress [Barbet Schroeder] c
1975	La marquise d'O.../Die Marquise von O.../The Marquise of O [Eric Rohmer] c
1976	Days of Heaven [Terrence Malick] 35mm (+ 70bu)/c; addph: Haskell Wexler; 2uc: Paul Ryan; time-lapse ph: Ken Middleham
1976	L'homme qui aimait les femmes/The Man Who Loved Women [François Truffaut] c
1977	Cambio de sexo/Change of Sex/I Want to Be a Woman [Vicente Aranda] c; cph: José Luis Alcaine
1977	Koko, le gorille qui parle/Koko, a Talking Gorilla [Barbet Schroeder] 16mm-35bu/c; doc/85m
1977	La vie devant soi/Madame Rosa [Moshe Mizrahi] c

1977	Goin' South [Jack Nicholson] c; addph: Hugh Gagnier
1977	La chambre verte/The Green Room [François Truffaut] c
1978	Perceval le Gallois [Eric Rohmer] p/c
1978	L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run [François Truffaut] b&w-c
1978	Kramer vs. Kramer [Robert Benton] c; assoc ph: Joe Coffey
1979	The Blue Lagoon [Randal Kleiser] c; addph: Vincent Monton; 2uc (+ insert ph): Peter Lyons Collister; uwph: Ron & Valerie Taylor

[Center] with dir François Truffaut [left] - "Le dernier métro"

1980	Le dernier métro/The Last Metro [François Truffaut] c
1980	Outre-mer [Jacques Fieschi] c; short/21m
1981	Still of the Night [Robert Benton] c; collab doph: Joe Coffey; + small part
1982	Sophie's Choice [Alan J. Pakula] c
1982	Pauline à la plage/Pauline at the Beach [Eric Rohmer] c
1982	Vivement dimanche!/Finally Sunday!/Confidentially Yours [François Truffaut] b&w
1983	Places in the Heart [Robert Benton] c; 2uc: Don Reddy & Philip Pfeiffer
1986	Heartburn [Mike Nichols] c
1987	Nadine [Robert Benton] c
1988	New York Stories [seg 'Life Lessons' dir by Martin Scorsese] c; 3 seg; other ph: Sven Nykvist & Vittorio Storaro
1988	Imagine: John Lennon [Andrew Solt] 16mm-35bu/b&w-c; doc/106m
*1989*	Reversal of Fortune [Barbet Schroeder] was the intended doph, but couldn't ph the film due to a scheduling conflict; film was ph by Luciano Tovoli
*1989*	Catherine Deneuve, un portrait [Antoinette Fouque] 16mm/c; doc/?m

[Left] with Martin Scorsese and Giorgio Armani

"Made in Milan" - photo Thys Ockersen Archive

1990	Made in Milan [Martin Scorsese] c; doc/27m
1990	Billy Bathgate [Robert Benton] c; vfx ph: John P. Mesa; uwph: Jordan Klein Sr.
1991	The Mambo Kings [Arne Glimcher] c; pick-up ph; ph: Michael Ballhaus

TELEVISION
1965	Le jardin public [Nestor Almendros] doc/24m/16mm/b&w; ep series 'Étude du milieu'
1965	La gare [Nestor Almendros] doc/20m/16mm/b&w
1965	Un dimanche chez le pâtissier [Nestor Almendros] doc/5m/16mm/b&w; ep series 'Dim Dam Dom'
196?	La journée d'un savant [Nestor Almendros] doc/?m/16mm/b&w
196?	La journée d'un medecin [Nestor Almendros] doc/?m/16mm/b&w
196?	La journée d'un journaliste [Nestor Almendros] doc/?m/16mm/b&w
196?	La journée d'une vendeuse [Nestor Almendros] doc/?m/16mm/b&w
196?	Au pays basque [Nestor Almendros] doc/?m/16mm/b&w
196?	En Corse [Nestor Almendros] doc/?m/16mm/b&w
196?	La Grèce [Nestor Almendros] 3-part doc/?m/16mm/b&w
196?	La vie économique au XIIIème siècle [Nestor Almendros] 3-part doc/?m/16mm/b&w
1968	Holiday in London Town [Nestor Almendros] 7-part doc/?m/16mm/b&w
1970	La créature [Claude Guillemot] tvm/60m/16mm
1976	Des journées entières dans les arbres/Entire Days Among the Trees [Marguerite Duras] tvm/16mm; also released theatrically (35bu)
1977	Le Centre Georges Pompidou - Beaubourg/Beaubourg, centre d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou [Roberto Rossellini] doc/57m; c.op: Jean Chiabaut & Emmanuel Machuel

FILMS & TELEVISION AS DIRECTOR
1950	Una confusión cotidiana [co-d; + ph] see Films
*1951*	La boticaria [+ ph] unfinished; see Films
1953	Un monólogo de Hamlet [co-d; + cph] see Films
1953	Sabá [+ ph] see Films
*195?*	Nunca [+ ph] unfinished; see Films
1956	The Mount of Luna [+ ph] see Films
1959	58-59 [+ scrpl/ph] see Films
1960	Escuelas rurales/Escuela rural [doc/16m/b&w; + scrpl] ph: Jorge Haydú
1960	Ritmo de Cuba [doc/20m/c; + scrpl] ph: Antonio Ruiz; prod ICAIC
1960	Gente en la playa/Sunday by the Sea/People of the Beach [+ scrpl/ph] see Films
1961	La tumba francesca [co-d; + scrpl/cph] see Films
1965	Le jardin public [+ ph] see Television
1965	La gare [+ ph] see Television
1965	Un dimanche chez le pâtissier [+ ph] see Television
196?	La journée d'un savant [+ ph] see Television
196?	La journée d'un medecin [+ ph] see Television
196?	La journée d'un journaliste [+ ph] see Television
196?	La journée d'une vendeuse [+ ph] see Television
196?	Au pays basque [+ ph] see Television
196?	En Corse [+ ph] see Television
196?	La Grèce [+ ph] see Television
196?	La vie économique au XIIIème siècle [+ ph] see Television
1968	Holiday in London Town [+ ph] see Television
1969	El baston [+ scrpl/ph] see Films
1983	Mauvaise conduite/Improper Conduct [co-d: Orlando Jiménez Leal; + co-scrpl; doc/115m] ph: Dominique Merlin
1984	Nadie escuchaba/Nobody Listened [co-d: Jorge Ulla; + co-prod/co-scrpl; doc/117m] ph: Orson Ochoa

MISCELLANEOUS
1964	Paris vu par.../Six in Paris [seg #6 'La Muette' dir by Claude Chabrol] asst dir; ph: Jean Rabier
1973	Villa 'Les Dunes' [Madeleine Hartmann-Clausset] tech adv; ph: François Pailleux