Henri Alekan

Henri Alekan 10 February 1909 Paris 15 June 2001 Auxerre Bourgogne was a French cinematographer Alekan was born in Montmartre in 1909 At the age of sixteen he and his brother became travelling puppeteers A little later he started work as third assistant cameraman at the Billancourt Studios He then spent a short time in the army returning to Billancourt in 1931 In the late 1930s he was the camera operator to Eugene Shufftan on Marcel Carnés Quai des Brumes and Drôle de drame He was greatly influenced by Schufftans nonnaturalistic style His first success as a director of photography was René Cléments realistic war drama La Bataille du Rail of 1946 In the same year he worked on Jean Cocteaus fable La Belle et la Bête He found himself out of sympathy with the French New Wave cinema which emerged in the late 1950s and Alekan shot some rather conventional films in Hollywood A new generation of directors appreciated his visionary style however and he worked with Raúl Ruiz on The Territory and On Top of the Whale with Joseph Losey on Figures in a Landscape and The Trout and with Wim Wenders on The State Of Things and Wings of Desire His last films were made with the Israeli director Amos Gitai He wrote one of the best books about cinematography Des lumières et des ombres 1984 Éditions du Collectionneur Alekan died from leukemia on 15 June 2001 in Auxerre Bourgogne aged 92 Source Article Henri Alekan from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30