The Man Who Shot Chinatown: The Life and Work of John A. Alonzo

I watched this yesterday during its premiere in cologne. The movie is somewhat clumsy edited and has problems with setting an emphasis besides repeatedly flattering John Alonzo.

Considering the title one would hope its emphasis was on Chinatown. But it's not! You get a little of Alonzo's childhood, his start in the business, his failed family life. But it is all kind of thrown at you and some parts seem like the rough cut.

The movie does not have an off-speaker, but is carried by many interviews with all kinds of (TOO MANY!!) people in the film industry. The biggest problem here is the absence of the VERY important people who were involved in Chinatown i.e. Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson, Robert Evans, Robert Towne, Faye Dunawaye...

The highlight of the movie is the acknowledged film critic Roger Ebert's brief insight of the special camera-work in Chinatown.

The work of the film cameraman is something that always carries a special interest for me. Their contributions to films are often, at the same time, underrated and overrated. Now while I admire the efforts that went into the making of this documentary I cannot enthuse over their choice of subject matter.

Mr Alonzo was a good, basic cameraman but not more than that. He was competent while not artistic, hard-working but not that interesting. Many cameramen of his generation went for easy gimmickry in their visuals instead of grounding their work in the best principles of motion picture photography. For example, placing yellow filters over the lens to suggest a 1940s (or historical) ambiance is something that many of these copycat DPs would do, but that isn't artistic cinematography. It is gimmickry. Often provided with photogenic background sets Mr Alonzo would light them not in the best interests of the story but merely to engage in display of visual pyrotechnics.

The producers of this documentary could have chosen so many more accomplished cinematographers as their subject. There are great names out there crying for a documentary like this: Robert Burks, Franz Planer, Robert Krasker, Arthur Miller, Joe August, Wilkie Cooper, Winton Hoch, Freddy Young, Osmond Borrodaile, Bert Glennon to name but a few. If we are going to try to encourage artistry in camera-work then we should be studying the artists.

Interesting documentary, but they could have chosen a more worthy subject.

This is an innovative and vividly pictorial documentary that I saw at the premiere in Cologne. Without any voice over (thank heavens), it explores Alonzo as man and artist in depth, using clips and interviews to weave a propulsive and compelling narrative. It really does draw you in, without ever falling into the "and then he shot..." banalities that infect this genre. This one's different, and mixes Alonzo's personal history with his craft into a fascinating whole. I really like the forward motion here. Clips are well-chosen. My only criticism is that the actual daily work of the cinematographer isn't really shown or described, the director/producers/writers apparently assuming (erroneously) that we'd know this already.

And--if I may critique a previous comment that bemoaned the absence of Polanski in the interviews--who the heck cares? He's SO bloody overrated as a director, and in interviews, a smug, pompous twit who specializes in self-congratulation.

My heretical opinion: Huston should have directed "Chinatown," not acted in it.

The documentary "The Man Who Shot Chinatown: The Life and Work of John A. Alonzo" is a fascinating look into the work and life of one of the most underrated figures of the movie industry, cinematographer John A. Alonzo (1934-2001). Inovative and hard worker he made the cinematography of 79 movies, some of the greatest movies of all time such as "Chinatown" (his only Oscar nomination) and "Scarface"; worked as an actor in his early years in Hollywood (he has a small role in "The Magnificent Seven") and even worked along with the great James Wong Howe, one of the most significant names of cinematography in Hollywood.

In the documentary footage of Alonzo's interviews and interviews with film critic Roger Ebert, actors Richard Dreyfuss (worked with Alonzo in "Lansky" and "Fail Safe") and Sally Field (worked with Alonzo in "Norma Rae" and "Steel Magnolias"), cinematographer Haskell Wexler and many of his friends and family presents us the professional, the family man and the friend in interesting testimonies. William Friedkin (who knew Alonzo from long time but only worked with him in "The Guardian") gives a great and relevant look on Alonzo's talented work including the exceptional lightning and the spectacular aerial shots of "Blue Thunder".

Documentaries that evoke the life and work of someone who worked behind the cameras on important films are very rare and this is well made except for the lack of information on Alonzo's final films, and for countless error on the year of release of many movies presented. Example: "Norma Rae" appears credited as released in 1978 but it was released in the following year. This kind of thing might seem not much of a big thing but it takes a little of the credibility of the researches of this documentary and provides wrong informations.

Another thing (noticed by other reviewer on IMDb also) it's the fact that the title of this documentary focused too much in "Chinatown" but when you watch it there's too little about it, and no one involved in "Chinatown" appeared to talk about his work on it. Not only he was nominated for an Oscar for his work (Polanski fired the first DP after this last one not follow his instructions) but he changed the face and the usual way of the film noir genre. This wasn't told in the documentary but if you take a look at the films noir they were all in black and white and Alonzo introduced colors, different lightning and the important use of shadows (Ebert mentions the shadows) in "Chinatown" establishing a whole new concept of film noir.

Except for that it's a must see documentary for anybody who enjoys movies and enjoys to know interesting things of what happens behind the scenes of great movies. On the rolling credits there's a few funny things about Alonzo and one story in particularly in told by Martin Ritt's daughter about how her father never was able to fix his TV when it was out of tune and he called to John Alonzo to fix it every time that happened. This funny story is presented in a good short animation. Very good! 9/10

I saw this wonderful documentary at the Plus CamerImage Filmfest in Lodz, Poland in late November 2007. This film contains a lot of great footage that John Alonzo created and at the same time gave me an insight into how his life story and important experiences in his life then went into his work as a cinematographer. A classic underdog story where the versatility of Mr.Alonzo's life reflects his versatility as a cameraman. A lot of interviews, maybe a bit too many talking heads, but a lot of valuable information, which not everybody might get the first time around. This film doesn't speculate, it simply shows and considering the fact that documentaries about cameramen are pretty rare I like to salute the filmmakers for their efforts.