Marcus Bartley was arguably the greatest cinematographer of those times. Almost all the superhits of those times were made with his hand at the camera. His specialty was the shots under the moonlight. In those days, a circle was drawn on a screen and the screen was lit to make it look like a moon. With this on the background, one cannot have other lights there. In spite of this difficulty, all the characters in such scenes had their shadows away from the moon. Apart from this, many of the transformations of elements in this movie were shown using Fade-In and Fade-Out techniques giving it a much better look and feel than the latest digital morphing which uses high technology computers. Marcus Bartley made this possible with his innovative ideas.[Maddy's Ramblings: Remembering - Marcus Bartley]
Maddy has a post about Marcus Bartley, most famous as the cinematographer of Chemmeen.
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He could teach our present garbage cinematographers a thing or two. Chemmeen was well made. I cant stand the wierd camera angles of some of today’s films. Gives me a headache.
@ Vincent
thats not the cinematographer’s fault…
what can you do when Shaji Kailas forces?
vincent – i beleive you made that comment after watching red chillies or some shaji kailas movie. thats not the cinematoigraphers fault.
some of the guys like ravi k chandran, santhosh thundiyil etc are good
S Kumar is one guy who has done amazing work, usually along with Priyadarshan. Also not to forget Santosh Sivan in various movies.
True that. They do a lot of weird head ache inducing angles these days for no apparent perceptive reasons(MTV inspired, supposedly), one such being the ‘mongaan irikkunna patti’s point of view’ angle, shot from below, looking up, seen immediately before a superstar rains a flurry of diarrheal dialogues on his favourite foe. Fatal blend in the masala.
Anyways great post. Well informative.
i believe this is the handiwork of don max – the editor who goes for all kinds of flash cuts in shaji kailas movies. in baba kalyani, chinthamani kolakkase, don etc you can see that
Slightly off topic, but I think it’s relevant. Ramachandra Babu’s work in Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha was fantastic. 2 notable scenes from that movie – Indulekha kan thurannu song picturisation – the lighting was superb – Mammootty riding the horse in the night. Other one is the final Ankam scene – a very agile camera without inducing motion sickness. One of the best fight scenes. Well thought out and executed. Compare that to gimmickry we witness today.
[...] about Marcus Bartley and the barf inducing camera movements of modern cinematographers when reader AG left the following comment which had us rolling on the floor: True that. They do a lot of weird head ache inducing angles [...]
my fav in a Malayalam film is KV Anand’s work
in Priyan’s Thenmavin Kombath
I believe I am the niece of Marcus Bartley via marriage. His wife Pauline was my mother’s sister and I was named for her. I wonder if anyone can get back to me and verify this.