The book documents the long and rich career of Wolfgang Suschitzky, cinematographer. It presents a behind-the-scenes snapshot of the British documentary and mainstream film world from the early 1940s until the late ‘80s, as well as unpublished portraits of directors, actors and actresses with whom ‘Su’ worked: Paul Rotha, Virginia McKenna, Sir Michael Caine, Dame Diana Rigg, Vincent Price, Trevor Howard, Dame Celia Johnson, and many more. The book includes a comprehensive filmography.
Developed in close cooperation with the artist, wolf suschitzky: films presents for the first time a selection of his photographs from his 50-year career in cinema. Suschitzky collaborated as a cameraman and Director of Photography on some 200 documentary and feature films. Most of his early films are documentaries, shot mostly between 1940 and 1970 – films that evoke the world of work in the past century. They zoom in on the exertions of day-to-day working life, on the labour carried out on assembly lines, in steel mills, and on the railway.
But Suschitzky is best known for his work on many iconic and famous feature films, such as No Resting Place (1951), the art-house daring of Ulysses (1967), the gangster classic Get Carter (1971) and The Bespoke Overcoat. In the book his behind the scenes photographs transports us into another world. They document a film director’s meticulous work on the script, the final touches applied by the wardrobe supervisor during fitting, and the magic worked by make-up artists.
On his 100th birthday this year BAFTA and the British Film Institute honoured Suschitzky with a special screening of his films and honoured him with a BAFTA lifetime achievement award. ‘Wolf Suschitzky has brought artistry to factual films, and documentary realism to drama. His photographic work – whether in static or moving form – demonstrates visual imagination, great technical skill, versatility, humour and a commitment, borne of strongly held political beliefs, to the society he is part of and to all its members.’
wolf suschitzky: films can be ordered from all bookshops or directly from the distributors Art Data, telephone 0208 747 1061, email orders@artdata.co.uk. This publication is a companion book to Wolf Suschitzky: photos.
WOLF SUSCHITZKY: FILMS
Edited by Michael Omasta, Brigitte Mayr, Ursula Seeber
With tributes by Robert D. Graff, Michael Gough, Mike Hodges, Virginia McKenna, Joseph Strick and Peter Suschitzky
English/German, 224 pages, with 180 photos,
printed in high quality b/w duotone, £ 25
ISBN 978-3-901644-33-7
SYNEMA Publications, Vienna 2010
Distributed in the UK by Art Data
