Douglas Slocombe
|
Douglas Slocombe OBE, BSC, ASC |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Ralph Douglas V Slocombe 10 February 1913 London, UK |
| Died | 22 February 2016 (aged 103) London, UK |
| Cause of death | Complications from a fall |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Cinematographer |
| Years active | 1940–89 |
Ralph Douglas V SlocombeOBE, BSC, ASC (10 February 1913 – 22 February 2016) was a British cinematographer, particularly known for his work at Ealing Studios in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as three Indiana Jones films. He won BAFTA Awards in 1964, 1975, and 1979, and was nominated for an Academy Award on three occasions.
Slocombe was born in London, the son of Marie (née Karlinsky) and journalist George Slocombe (1894–1963). His mother was Russian. His father was the Paris correspondent for the Daily Herald, and so Slocombe spent part of his upbringing in France, returning to the United Kingdom in around 1933. He graduated with a degree in Mathematics from the Sorbonne.
Slocombe initially intended to become a photojournalist, and as a young photographer, Slocombe witnessed the early events leading up to the outbreak of World War II. Visiting Danzig in 1939, he photographed the growing anti-Jewish sentiment. In consequence, he was commissioned by American film-maker Herbert Kline to film events for a documentary called Lights Out, covering a Goebbels rally and the burning of a synagogue, for which he was briefly arrested. Slocombe was in Warsaw with a movie camera on 1 September 1939 when it was attacked by Germany. Accompanied by Kline, he escaped, but his train was machine-gunned by a German aeroplane. In 2014, he said of the experience that:
I had no understanding of the concept of blitzkrieg. I had been expecting trouble but I thought it would be in trenches, like WW1. The Germans were coming over the border at a great pace ... We were trundling through the countryside at night. We kept stopping for no apparent reason, but we came to a screeching halt because a German plane was bombing us. After its first pass we climbed out the window and crawled under the carriage. The plane came back and started machine-gunning. A young girl died in front of us.
...
Wikipedia