Alberto Cavalcanti

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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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Re: Alberto Cavalcanti

#26 Post by MichaelB » Wed Mar 07, 2012 7:09 am

HerrSchreck wrote:AC.was a fabulous and all-around talent, and your list certainly helps deepen that understanding.
Amongst other things, he was a great talent-spotter - and talent-defender.

I've just written a biography of Humphrey Jennings' regular editor Stewart McAllister for the second Jennings volume, and it seems that Cavalcanti not only gave McAllister his first big break on Men of the Lightship, but also took his side against director David MacDonald, who objected to what he saw as McAllister's overly tricksy cutting - the German plane attack on the lightship is heralded by a shock-cut to a seagull squawking, and when the captain is hit, we see "flashes" of his loved ones.

Cavalcanti correctly recognised that McAllister was improving the film immensely, and in the end MacDonald seems to have walked off the project early - the assumption is that Cavalcanti and McAllister finished it together, although MacDonald still gets a sole director credit. And a year or two later Humphrey Jennings considered McAllister's contribution to Listen to Britain to be so creatively essential that he insisted that the two men share a director and editor credit, even though there's no reliable record of McAllister being present during the filming.

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