Richard Leacock was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-born
documentary filmDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
director and one of the pioneers of
Direct CinemaDirect Cinema is a documentary genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, principally in the Canadian province of Quebec and the United States...
and
Cinéma véritéCinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
.
Early life and career
Leacock was born in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on 18 July 1921, the younger brother of film director and producer
Philip LeacockPhilip David Charles Leacock was an English television and film director and producer. His brother was documentary filmmaker Richard Leacock.-Career:...
. Leacock grew up on his father's banana plantation in the Canary Islands until being sent to boarding schools in England at the age of eight.
He took up photography with a glass plate camera, built a darkroom and developed his pictures, but was not satisfied. At age 11 he was shown a silent film
Turk-Sib about the building of the
Trans-Siberian RailwayThe Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...
. He was stunned, and said to himself "All I need is a cine-camera and I can make a film that shows you what it is like to be there".
At the age of 14 he wrote, directed, filmed and edited
Canary Bananas (10 min. 16mm, silent), a film about growing bananas, but it did not, in his opinion, give you "the feeling of being there".
He was educated at
Dartington Hall SchoolThe Dartington Hall Trust, near Totnes, Devon, United Kingdom is a charity specialising in the arts, social justice and sustainability.The Trust currently runs 16 charitable programmes, including The Dartington International Summer School and Schumacher Environmental College...
from 1934-38, alongside Robert Flaherty's daughters, and where
David LackDavid Lambert Lack FRS, was a British evolutionary biologist who made contributions to ornithology, ecology and ethology. His book on the finches of the Galapagos Islands was a landmark work.- Early life :...
(
Life of the Robin) taught biology.
Having filmed in the Canary Islands and then in the Galapagos Islands (1938-9) for ornithologist David Lack's expedition, he moved to the USA and majored in Physics at Harvard in order to master the technology of filmmaking. Meanwhile he worked as cameraman and assistant editor on other peoples films, notably
To Hear Your Banjo Play (1941), filming a folk music festival atop a mountain in south Virginia where there was no electricity, with a 35mm studio camera and 35mm optical film sound recorder using batteries in a large truck, a rare achievement at that time. Three years as a combat photographer in Burma and China were followed by 14 months as cameraman on Robert Flaherty's
Louisiana StoryLouisiana Story is a 78-minute black-and-white American film. Although the events and characters depicted are fictional, it is often misidentified as a documentary film. In fact, it is a docufiction. The script was written by Frances H. Flaherty and Robert J. Flaherty, and also directed by Robert...
.
In the meantime, Leacock had married Eleanor "Happy" Burke in 1941. Daughter of the world-famous literary critic, philosopher, and writer
Kenneth BurkeKenneth Duva Burke was a major American literary theorist and philosopher. Burke's primary interests were in rhetoric and aesthetics.-Personal history:...
, she had studied at Radcliffe College, but graduated from Barnard in New York City. The Leacocks had four children together. After ethnographic fieldwork with the Innu (Montagnais-Naskapi) of Labrador,
Eleanor LeacockEleanor "Happy" Leacock was a theorist of anthropology, focusing on the issue of gender during the feminist movement.Leacock was born in 1922 in New Jersey. Her mother Lily was a mathematician and her father was world-famous literary critic, philosopher, and writer Kenneth Burke...
(1922-1987) earned her doctorate in anthropology at Columbia University (1952). Ten years later, after her marriage broke up, she went on to become a pioneering feminist anthropologist.
Documentaries
Many relatively conventional jobs followed, until 1954. He was then asked to make a reportage on a traveling tent theater in Missouri: the first film that he wrote, directed, photographed and edited himself, since
Canary Bananas.
This film,
Toby and the Tall Corn, went on the American cultural TV program,
Omnibus, in prime time and brought him into contact with Robert Drew, an editor at
LIFELife generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine in search for a less verbal approach to television reportage. Another new contact, Roger Tilton wanted to film an evening of people dancing to Dixieland music spontaneously. Leacock filmed
Jazz Dance for him, using hand held camera techniques.
Leacock's search for high quality, mobile, synchronous equipment to facilitate observation was ongoing. By 1960 this had been achieved, and resulted in
Robert DrewRobert Lincoln Drew is an American documentary filmmaker known as a pioneer of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States....
's film
PrimaryPrimary is a 1960 Direct Cinema documentary film about the 1960 Wisconsin Primary election between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey for the United States Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States....
, an intimate observation of a primary election with Democratic hopefuls
John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and
Hubert HumphreyHubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
in Wisconsin.
A number of films followed made by Drew, DA Pennebaker, Maysles and their associates, but the US networks were not impressed. In France at the
Cinémathèque FrançaiseThe Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films from around the world.-History:...
, when Drew and Leacock screened
PrimaryPrimary is a 1960 Direct Cinema documentary film about the 1960 Wisconsin Primary election between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey for the United States Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States....
and
On the Pole,
Henri LangloisHenri Langlois was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema...
introduced the films as "perhaps the most important documentaries since the brothers Lumiere". After the screening, a monk in robes came up to them and said, "You have invented a new form. Now you must invent a new grammar!"
When Drew went to work for ABC-TV, Leacock Pennebaker was formed and produced
Happy Mother's Day,
Dont Look BackDont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
,
Monterey PopMonterey Pop is a 1968 concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that documents the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. Among Pennebaker's several camera operators were fellow documentarians Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles...
,
A Stravinsky Portrait and many others ending with the remnants of
Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
's
One A.M. - One P.M. (1972).
In 1968 he was invited to join
Ed PincusEd Pincus began filmmaking in 1964, developing a direct cinema approach to social and political problems. He has producer-director-DP credits on eight of his films and has been cinematographer on more than a dozen additional films.-Films:...
creating a new, small film school at
MITThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
. Since 16mm filming was becoming so expensive, his group developed super-8 film sync equipment with modified mass-produced cameras that were much cheaper. Many filmmakers emerged from this program, including
Ross McElweeRoss McElwee is an American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer, and Harvard professor, known for his autobiographical films about his family and personal life, usually interwoven with an episodic journey of some sort. Many cultural aspects of his southern upbringing are present in his...
(Sherman's March), among others.
In 1989 he retired and moved to Paris, where he met Valerie Lalonde and, together, they made
Les Oeufs a la Coque de Richard Leacock (84 minutes), the first major film shot with a tiny Video-8 Handycam to be broadcast on prime-time television in France. Leacock and Lalonde continued making films of their own choice without the pressures of TV producers.
Leacock died on 23 March 2011 at age the age of 89 in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Before his death, he was raising funds for his multi-format memoir, “Richard Leacock: The Feeling of Being There,” a bound paper book and digital video book set to be published by Semeïon Editions.
Selected filmography
- 1935 Canary Bananas (8 min.)
- 1941 To Hear Your Banjo Play (20m, dir. Charles Korvin (Geza Karpathy))
- 1946 Louisiana Story
Louisiana Story is a 78-minute black-and-white American film. Although the events and characters depicted are fictional, it is often misidentified as a documentary film. In fact, it is a docufiction. The script was written by Frances H. Flaherty and Robert J. Flaherty, and also directed by Robert...
(cameraman)
- 1948 Mount Vernon and The New Frontier (cameraman)
- 1949 Earthquake in Ecuador (director cameraman)
- 1950 Head of the House (writer-director-editor)
- 1952 The Lonely Night (dir. Irving Jacoby, filmed by Leacock)
- 1954 Jazz Dance (20min., cameraman)
- 1954 Toby and the Tall Corn (30 min., writer-director-camera-editor for Omnibus)
- 1956 A Conversation with Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
- 1957 How the F-100 Got Its Tail (20 min., for Omnibus)
- 1957-9 Frames of Reference, Coulomb's Law, A Magnet Laboratory, Crystals
- 1958 Bernstein in Israel (30 min., Omnibus)
- 1959 Bernstein in Moscow (55 min.)
- 1959 Bull Fight at Malaga (20 min.)
- 1960 Primary (30 min.)
- 1960 Adventures on the New Frontier (possibly a longer version of Primary, Close-Up, ABC)
- 1960 Yank! No! (55 min., Close-Up, ABC)
- 1960 Kenya: Land of the White Ghost (Close-Up, ABC)
- 1961 The Children Were Watching (dir. Leacock, Close-Up, ABC)
- 1960 On the Pole (aka, Eddie, 55 min, co-produced and directed, The Living Camera)
- 1961 Peter and Johnny (55 min., produced by Leacock, The Living Camera)
- 1961 The Chair (55 min., co-produced, directed, and photographed, The Living Camera)
- 1962 Nehru (55 min, co-produced, directed, and shot with Gregory Shuker, The Living Camera)
- 1962 Susan Starr (54 min., filmed by a number of cinematographers, including Leacock, The Living Camera)
- 1963 Crisis (55 min.)
- 1963 Happy Mother's Day (30 min.)
- 1964 Republicans - The New Breed (30 min., with Noel E. Parmentel Jr.)
- 1965 A Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
Portrait (55 min., made with Rolf LiebermannRolf Liebermann , was a Swiss composer and music administrator born in Zurich, and associated with several different musical genres. His output included chansons, classical, and light music. His classical music often combines myriad styles and techniques, including those drawn from baroque,...
)
- 1965 Geza Anda (30 min, with Rolf Liebermann)
- 1965 Ku Klux Klan - Invisible Empire (50 min., produced and written by David Lowe for CBS Reports)
- 1966 Oh Mein Pa-Pa! (made with Rolf Liebermann)
- 1966 The Anatomy of Cindy Fine (20 min.)
- 1966 Old Age, The Wasted Years (30 min. x 2 for WNET)
- 1966 Monterey Pop
Monterey Pop is a 1968 concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that documents the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. Among Pennebaker's several camera operators were fellow documentarians Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles...
(assisted D.A. Pennebaker)
- 1968 1-AM - 1-PM (90 min., with Pennebaker and Jean-Luc Godard)
- 1968 French Lunch (cameraman)
- 1968 Hickory Hill (18 min., with George Plimpton)
- 1969 Chiefs (18 min., with Noel E. Parmentel Jr.)
- 1969 Maidstone (cameraman with others)
- 1970 Company (60 min., one of three cameramen)
- 1970 Queen of Apollo (20 min., with Elspeth Leacock)
- 1972 Thread (20 min.)
- 1977 Isabella Stewart Gardner (30 min.)
- 1978 Centerbeam (20 min.)
- 1980 Light Coming Through (20 min.)
- 1981 Community of Praise (55 min.)
- 1984 Lulu in Berlin (50 min.)
- 1991 Les Oeufs a la Coque de Richard Leacock (84 min.) video
- 1992 Rehearsal: The Killings of Cariola (35 min.)
- 1992 Les Vacances de Monsieur Leacock (20 min.)
- 1992 Kren: Parking (3 min.)
- 1993 "Gott sei Dank" eine Besuch bei Helga Feddersen (30 min.)
- 1993 Felix et Josephine (33 min.)
- 1993 Hooray! We're Fifty! 1943-1993 (30 min.)
- 1993 A Celebration of Saint Silas (30 min.)
- 1994 A Hole in the Sea
- 1996 A Musical Adventure in Siberia
Films about Leacock
- Ein Film für Bossak und Leacock (1984) – German documentarist Klaus Wildenhahn's homage to Richard Leacock and Jerzy Bossak
- On Being There with Richard Leacock by Jane Weiner, a JDB Films and Striana co-production. (work-in-progress)
Further reading
- Leacock (1988), Interview in: Mo Beyerle, Christine N. Brinckmann (editors), Der amerikanische Dokumentarfilm der 60er Jahre. Direct Cinema und Radical Cinema, Frankfurt am Main, New York: Campus, 1991, p. 124–133
- Mamber, Stephen (1974), Cinéma Vérité in America. Studies in Uncontrolled Documentary, Cambridge, Mass.
- Dave Saunders, Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties, London, Wallflower Press 2007
External links