(left) w. director Stanley KubrickAlcott began his film career as a clapper boy, the lowest member of a camera crew. By the early 1960s, he had worked his way up to focus puller, the #3 position on a camera crew after the lighting cameraman and camera operator. As a focus puller, Alcott was responsible for measuring the distances between the camera and the subject being shot, which is critical during traveling shots, and more vitally, he was tasked with adjusting the lens when the camera is following a subject.
By the mid-1960s, Alcott was a member of the camera team of master cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, working on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968). When Unsworth had to leave the project during its two-year-long shoot to meet other commitments, Alcott was elevated to lighting cameraman by Kubrick. Thus began a collaboration that would reach its zenith years later with BARRY LYNDON (1975).
Alcott preferred lighting that appeared natural and which did not draw attention to itself. His ideas meshed perfectly with those of Kubrick, and the two developed their ideas about "natural" lighting in two landmark films, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) and BARRY LYNDON. The idea of using candlelight solely for illumination was discussed by Alcott and Kubrick after the wrap of "2001" for Kubrick's planned film about the life of Napoleon, but there wasn't a fast-enough lens in existence at the time. After a search, Kubrick located three unique 50mm f/0.7 still-camera camera lenses designed by the Zeiss Corporation for use by NASA in its Apollo moon-landing program in order to shoot still pictures in the low light levels of outer space. The lens was 2 f-stops faster than the fastest movie camera lens made at the time. Cinema Products Corp. adapted a standard Mitchell BNC movie camera to accept the new lenses. This battery of three lenses allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot the indoor scenes for BARRY LYNDON using nothing but candlelight.
Alcott won an Academy Award for his work on BARRY LYNDON, which is considered one of the most visually beautiful movies ever made. (Three of Alcott's movies were ranked in the top 20 of "Best Shot" movies in the period after 1950-97 by the American Society of Cinematographers: 2001 at #3, BARRY LYNDON at #16, and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, for which he won the British Academy Award, at #19.) Alcott realized Kubrick's vision by evoking the paintings of Corot, Gainsborough, and Watteau, creating gorgeous tableaux. It was the aesthetic opposite of the cubism evoked by A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
While shooting what would turn out to be his last film for Kubrick, THE SHINING (1980), Alcott lit the hotel sets with "practicals" (sources of lighting that are visible on screen as part of the set, such as lighting fixtures). As on BARRY LYNDON, Alcott supplemented the lighting with illumination coming into the set from outside the windows, though the "windows" on THE SHINING were part of a set. The high temperatures (110° Farhenheit) caused by the 700,000 watts of illumination outside the set's "windows" Alcott used to create the high white effect favored by Kubrick caused the set to burn down.
Alcott, who shot films and TV commercials for other directors in the UK, moved to the US in 1981 in order to obtain more steady work than was possible in the ailing British film industry. His non-Kubrick projects as a cinematographer included three films with director Stuart Cooper and two with Roger Spottiswoode. Alcott could not shoot Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET (1987), which commenced shooting in 1985 and -- like any Kubrick shoot -- would involved a substantial commitment of time -- as Alcott was committed to other projects. (Kubrick hired Douglas Milsome, who had been Alcott's focus puller on BARRY LYNDON and THE SHINING, to shoot JACKET). His non-Kubrick œuvre was eccentric, and included the Canadian slasher film MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981), but he was able to bring his outstanding visual quality to such movies as FORT APACHE: THE BRONX (1981), THE BEASTMASTER (1982), UNDER FIRE (1983), Hugh Hudson's GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES (1984), and BABY... SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND (1985).
Alcott suffered a massive heart attack and died on July 28, 1986 in Cannes, France. At the time of his death, he was considered one of film's great artist-technicians, someone who, through his ability to push back the boundaries of what was technically possible, linked technology to aesthetic needs and contributed to the development of cinema as an art form. His last film, NO WAY OUT (1987), was dedicated to his memory.
The British Society of Cinematographers named one of its awards the "BSC John Alcott ARRI Award" in his honor to commemorate his role as a lighting cameraman in the development of film as an art form.
Cinematography 1975: BARRY LYNDON
1 nomination, 1 Award