In Remembrance: Freddie Francis

     Freddie Francis, the two-time Academy Award winning cinematographer has passed away on March 17, 2007 in Isleworth, England. He was 89.

     Born on December 22, 1917 in Islington, England, Francis worked as a cameraman and director of British Army training films during World War II. Following the war, he worked in the British film industry as a cameraman working on numerous films including three for director John Houston- Moulin Rogue (1952), Beat The Devil (1953) and Moby Dick (1956). The 1956 war film A Hill in Korea marked Francis’s first film as a cinematographer.

     Francis quickly developed a reputation for his striking black-and-white photography on such films as Room At The Top (1958) and Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960). He won his first Academy Award for his work on Sons And Lovers (1960).

     Francis’s growing reputation lead to his first directorial effort Two And Two Make Six (1962). (He had previously directed some reshoots for the 1962 science-fiction feature The Day Of The Triffids.) However, Francis’s next several films were genre films for Hammer and Amicus studios, where his stunning work earned him a cult reputation while simultaneously closing off offers to work on other types of films. Today, his films Paranoiac (1962), The Evil Of Frankenstein (1964), The Skull (1965) and Tales From The Crypt (1972) are considered classics of the era.

     Becoming more dissatisfied with his inability to break out of the horror genre, Francis returned to cinematography for director David Lynch’s 1980 film The Elephant Man, shooting the film in his preferred black-and-white. With the critical success of The Elephant Man, Francis found his own career revitalized. He would go on to several prestigious projects including The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), Clara’s Heart (1988) and Cape Fear (1991). He would reteam with Lynch to shoot 1984’s Dune and 1999’s The Straight Story, his final film. He would receive his second Academy Award for his work on the 1989 Civil War drama Glory.

     In 1997 Francis was awarded the International Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers.