American Cinematographer - September 1990 - 81

Technical
Achievement
Award

spectra
Winner of Technical
ichievement Award

CineSpot

by George L. George

l°Spotmeter

A

richly detailed biography, Gavin

Lambert's Norma Shearer portrays a
"creature wholly of the movies," sophis¬

ticated, glamorous, and supreme in the
art of cinematic illusion on and off the

Married to top

MGM producer
Irving Thalberg, she dominated the studio
as the symbol of Hollywood in her time
(Knopf, NYC, $24.95).
Scott Eyman's highly readable
biography, Mary Pickford: American's
screen.

Sweetheart, evokes the life of the first
bona fide movie star, a shrewd, tough
business woman, but also a creative and

understanding human being (Fine, NYC,
$19.95).
Ray Moseley's Bette Davis:
An Intimate Memoir and Shaun

Considine's Bette & Joan, the Divine

Feud, share the distinction of drowning
the salient facts of their lives in

huge
helpings of unrestrained gossip, thus trivializaing their significant contribution to
the art of the movies (Fine, NYC, $18.95;
Dutton, NYC, $19.95).
Spunky but naive, silent movie
star Madge Bellamy, who died early this
year at age 90, relives in her memoir, A
Darling of the Twenties, a popular
career that suffered from her independ¬
ent nature and prickly intelligence (Ves¬
tal Press, Vestal, NY, $19.95).
In Legends, Washington Post
critic Tom Shales profiles great stars of
the screen who became part of our na¬
tional character. Fred Astaire, Rita

Hayworth, Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda and
Ingrid Berman are among those he eulo¬
gizes, bringing out with affection and
taste the positive images that survive
them (Random House, NYC, $17.95).
A privileged view of director
Francois Truffaut's integrity, dedication
and highly personal approach to cinema
emerges from Francois Truffaut, Corre¬
spondence 1945-1984, a hefty collec¬
tion of intense and articulate letters to his

fellow directors and other personalities

of
industry (Farrar, Straus & Gir¬
oux, NYC $50/$19.95).
In Directed by Vincente
Minnelli, Stephen Harvey explores the
director's distinctive style, a visually
compelling aggregate of expressionistic
color, exceptionally fluid camera, and

the movie

FOR MEASURING
SCREEN BRIGHTNESS

MEASURES:
*

attention to detail that marked his films,
from musicals such as An American in
Paris to melodramas such as The Clock

*
*

artist/entrepreneur, whose Sullivan's
Travels and The Lady Eve remain signifi¬
cant examples of cinematic social com¬
ment (Little Brown, NYC, $19.95).
Deciphering the unsolved mur¬
der in 1922 of Hollywood director William
Desmond Taylor is attempted by Robert
Giroux in A Deed of Death. Exonerating
screen stars Mary Miles Minter and
Mabel Normand, Giroux's tightly rea¬
soned piece of sleuthing settles for a
contract killer hired by the drug mob
(Knopf, NYC, $19.95).
serve an

Two new reference works de¬
honored slot on the library shelf.

The

Encyclopedia of Holywood, com¬
piled by Scott and Barbara Siegel, in¬
cludes 700 substantial entries evaluating
outstanding moviemakers and significant
facts about contributions to the pre-emi¬
of the American film. Geoff An¬
drew's stimulating guide, The Film
nence

Stray Light and
Surround

(Harper & Row, NYC, $29.95).
An upbeat biography of the first
screenwriter ever to direct his own work,
Daniel Spoto's Madcap: the Life of
Preston Sturges follows the colorful and
often chaotic career of the multi-talented

Screen Brightness
and uniformity
Contrast Ratios

Brightness
FOR:
*

Movie and Slide

*

Television Monitors
Set Lighting

Projection Systems
*

CineSpot 1° Spotmeter from
SPECTRA CINE has been design¬
ed for easy use and for mak¬
ing simple yet accurate screen
brightness measurements.
The CineSpot features eyelevel, magnified thru-the-lens
viewing of the 1-degree spot
area. For accuracy, each in¬
dividually calibrated instru¬
ment uses an ultra-stable
silicon photo detector,

together with computerselected glass filters to match
the spectral response of the
human eye. Readability of the
CineSpot extends from 0.5 to
500 foot-Lamberts, with ex¬
cellent resolution in the critical
10 to 500 foot-Lambert

region.

Handbook, assesses knowledgeably the
some 200 influential directors,
their impact on cinema, and the nature
work of

and

style of their films (Facts on File, NYC,

$40; G.K. Hall, Boston, $25).
A definitive pictorial and statis¬
tical record of films released the previous
year, the 40th edition of John Willis'

THE CHOICE OF PROFESSIONALS
FOR ALMOST HALF A CENTURY

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September 1990
American Cinematographer - September 1990

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 1990
