Gregg Toland

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Gregg Toland (May 29, 1904 - September 26, 1948) was a highly influential American cinematographer, noted for his innovative use of lighting and techniques such as deep focus, an example of which can be found in his work on Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.

During the 1930s Toland was one of the most sought after cinematographers after becoming the youngest cameraman in Hollywood. Over a seven-year span (1936–1942), he was nominated five times for the "Best Cinematography" Oscar, including a win in 1940 for his work on Wuthering Heights.

He worked with many of the top directors of the '20s, '30s, and '40s, including John Ford, Howard Hawks, Erich von Stroheim, King Vidor, Orson Welles, and William Wyler.

He died on September 28, 1948, of a coronary thrombosis in Hollywood, California.

Toland was the subject of an "Annals of Hollywood" article in The New Yorker, "The Cameraman," by Hilton Als (June 19, 2006, p. 46).

Just before his death, he was concentrating on the "ultimate focus" lens (which makes both near and far objects equally distinct).

Contents

[edit] Gregg Toland's credit on Citizen Kane

Some film historians believe Citizen Kane's visual brilliance was due primarily to the contributions of Toland, and not director Orson Welles. Many of Welles' scholars maintain that the visual style of Kane is similar to many of Welles' other films, and hence should be considered "his" work. However, the Welles movies that most resemble Citizen Kane (The Magnificent Ambersons, The Stranger, Touch of Evil) were shot by Toland's collaborators, Russel Metty (at RKO) and Stanley Cortez.

A commonly known story was that during the shoot, Welles would give lighting instructions that fall normally under the Director of Photography's responsibility. This story was propagated by (among others) both Welles and Toland. Welles acknowledged, years later, that "Toland was advising him on camera placement and lighting effects secretly so the young director would not be embarrassed in front of the highly experienced crew". [1].

This assumption, finally, is contradicted by a number of facts described below.

[edit] Gregg Toland's innovations on The Long Voyage Home and Citizen Kane

His techniques have been a revolution for the art of cinematography. Before him, shallow depth of field was used to separate the various planes on the screen, creating an impression of space, as well as stressing what mattered in the frame by leaving the rest (the foreground or background) out of focus. With Toland's lighting schemes, shadow was a much more interesting tool, dramatically as well as picturally, to separate foreground from background, to create space within a two-dimensional frame - while everything was in focus. This technique was also, according to Toland, more comparable to what the eyes see in real life, since our vision doesnt blur what we look at, but what we dont look at.

[edit] Gregg Toland's deep focus technique and lighting schemes

At the urging of Orson Welles, Toland experimented freely on Citizen Kane, creating a deep focus technique, collaborating with Set designer Perry Ferguson so ceilings would be visible in the frame, and making a range of alterations to the Mitchell BNC camera, which allowed for a wider range of movement.

The main way to achieve deep focus was closing down the aperture, which required more powerful lighting, lens with better light transmission, and faster film stock. On Kane, the cameras and coated lenses used were Toland's own design, which allowed for the many inventions of the movie. His lenses were treated with Vard Opticoat to reduce glare and increase light transmission. He used the Kodak Super XX film stock, which was, at the time, the fastest film available. Lens apertures employed on most productions were usually within the f:2.3 to f:3.5 range; Toland shot his scenes at between f:8 and f:16.

[edit] Optical Print shots and In-camera Composites on Citizen Kane

Gregg Toland collaborated with Linwood G. Dunn on a number of shots. Although these looked like they were using the deep focus technique, they were actually a composite of two different shots. Some of these shots were composited with an optical printer, a device which Dunn invented and perfected over the years, which explains why foreground and background are both in focus even though the lenses and film stock used in 1941 could not allow for such depth of field.

But Toland hated that technique, since he felt he was "duping", and therefore lowering the quality of his shots. Therefore, other shots (like the shot of Susan Alexander's suicide, with a glass in the foreground and Kane entering the room in the background) were in-camera composites, meaning the film was exposed twice - another technique that Linwood Dunn perfected.

[edit] Similarities between Citizen Kane and The Long Voyage Home

Toland had already had experience with heavy in-camera compositing, and many of the shots in Kane look similar in composition and dynamics to a number of shots in John Ford's The Long Voyage Home.

Shots in both movies, for instance, create an artificial lighting situation where a character is lit in the background, walks or runs through dark areas to the foreground, where his arrival triggers, off-screen, a light that wasn't on before he arrived in front of the camera. The visually dramatic result being that the character is going through vast pools of shadows, barely visible, and comes very close to the camera, where his face is lit. This technique of using much more shadows than light was to be one of the main techniques of low key lighting.

There are a number of other striking similarities between the Long Voyage Home and Citizen Kane.

1. Low key lighting (that is high contrast lighting), which would be the mainstay of Film Noir, was used very extensively on both movies.

2. The appearance of characters in the foreground, very close to the camera, sometimes even allowing the lenses to distort their facial features.

3. The lighting of sets, whether they were used for interior or exterior scenes, was done mostly from the floor instead of from the rafters high above. This was a radical departure from Hollywood's techniques (and was much less time-efficient). The effect was strikingly more realistic, as the light sources, being closer to the characters, allowed for soft lighting (which lights placed far above the set wouldn't allow).

4. Finally, and interestingly, both movies have their directors, Welles as well as Ford, sharing directorial credits with Toland, even though this was not allowed in Hollywood.

[edit] Other important works

Even though Citizen Kane is his most famous achievement, and there is much less doubt today that he was in fact responsible for the visuals in the movie, his style was very varied. For the Grapes of Wrath, he inspired his work from Dorothea Lange's photographs, and achieved a rare gritty and realist look.

During World War II, Toland served as a Lieutenant in the Navy camera department, which lead to his only work as a director: December 7th: the Movie.

[edit] Academy Award nominations

[edit] Selected Filmography

[edit] Miscellaneous

At the 2006 Los Angeles edition of CineGear, a panel called "Dialogue with ASC Cinematographers" (composed of highly influential cinematographers) was asked to name two or three other cinematographers living or dead that had influenced their work or who they consider to be the best of the best. In each case Gregg Toland was cited first by each panel member. The panel was composed of Owen Roizman, Laszlo Kovacs, Daryn Okada, Rodrigo Prieto, Russell Carpenter, Dariusz Wolski and others.

[edit] External links

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