I’ve been writing too many remembrances about good friends lately. The year started out on a sad note with the January 7 passing of Owen Roizman, ASC. In May, legendary first assistant cameraman Doug Hart breathed his last. Two weeks ago, John Bailey, ASC left us. And yesterday, another one of the all-time greats followed in their wake.
Victor Kemper, ASC may not have enjoyed the visibility of some of his more celebrated contemporaries over the course of his long career, but he was in every way their equal. After starting as an assistant on commercials at EUE Studios in New York City (alongside fellow future superstars Roizman and Gordon Willis), he segued to features in 1970. Through more than sixty films, he established himself as part of that small group of Golden Age cinematographers who helped change the way movies looked.
In keeping with his generally modest temperament, Kemper never let his work call attention to itself. Instead, he found ways to tell the story in the clearest, most economical manner possible. Witness one of my all-time favorite films, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973; Peter Yates), in which he redefined the term ‘minimalist.’ His images here are so stripped of artifice that they border on the ugly…and they are precisely the correct choice for the noir-ish narrative. Not many of us would have had the courage to hang it out there in quite the way he did, but Kemper had no reservations. He was flattered by my assessment when we deconstructed the movie for an ASC podcast a few years back. I was flattered just to be in his company.
His demise is not only a sad moment for his family and friends, it also has significance for the greater filmmaking community. It represents the end of the line for a generation of cinematographers for whom radical innovation was the norm. I knew most of them to one degree or another, and there may be a couple of outliers left, but it must be stated clearly: everything we accept as convention in our work today is directly traceable to what Kemper and his pals were doing in the 1970’s.
On the most personal of notes, he was one of the sweetest guys you could meet. You haven’t really lived until you’ve spent a night or two enjoying his war stories and absorbing his counsel over a ration of Glenlivet in Billy’s Bar at the ASC Clubhouse. He was a great mentor to many, not least of which myself, especially during my early years with the organization. I will always be grateful for his guidance. And now, along with the other giants I’ve been privileged to get to know there, I’ll always miss him, too.
The ASC Podcast in which I interview Kemper about The Friends of Eddie Coyle can be accessed through the following link:https://theasc.com/podcasts/the-friends-of-eddie-coyle-victor-kemper-asc
Thank you Richard for honoring these giants in our profession. I had the pleasure of being trained by Doug Hart in 1987. I did get to meet Harry Wolf ASC in Los Angeles and talk with him about the Technicolor 3 strip cameras. Harry and Doug were amazing at sharing knowledge. Great guys, who were willing to spend time and talk with a 23 year old about life, the art and craft of cinema. That is why I always enjoy listening to any war stories, teaching by experts. They are just darn fine people, who have a passion for what they do.
Breaks my heart to see this so soon after the news of John Bailey… I worked with VIctor on about a dozen films during my career at Technicolor, and he was one of the three Cinematographers that sponsored me for membership in the ASC. My late wife Anne and I loved Victor and Claire so much, and they were very helpful to us as newlyweds in our new home. We loved laire’s name so much, we named our second daughter Claire. A gentleman among gentlemen, and remarkably talented too, amnd often didn’t get the credit he deserved for the fine Cinematographer he is. Oh I will miss him…
I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Victor after a Coffee and Conversation at the Clubhouse years ago where he did a Q&A on The Friends of Eddie Coyle. We talked about his work on Tommy Boy and his relationship with the late Chris Farley while shooting the film. I could tell in how he spoke that he had a heart of gold. Thank you Richard for the write up on Victor, a sad day to see another great one pass to the other side.
Thank you Richard for a thoughtful remembrance of one of my heroes in life. Victor always had a clever remark and always made me feel that he valued our friendship. I have great memories of listening to his stories during remastering and trading art with Claire. I think of him and his smile often.
Here is some more about Victor…
My first day at Technicolor was on Monday, April 2nd, 1979. I was hired to be the assistant/gofer for Skip Nicholson, the “Mr. Technicolor” of his day. Skip taught me all the basics of the Technicolor film lab, along with tutoring by his colleague John Fiedler, closer to my own age. Each day Ship and John would view the dailies for all the feature films and Warner Bros. television going through Technicolor at the time. Taking phone calls from Cinematographers and describing for them how that day’s dailies looked. Once we were finished with the day’s dailies, it was then taking calls from editors and assistants helping shepherd reprints of dailies for post production and other special tasks. When I was done with my assignments, I was allowed to go and sit and talk to the “old timers” and pick their brains about Technicolor, 3-strip cameras, and Dye Transfer/IB printing.
Honestly, those first few weeks at Technicolor, most Cinematographers didn’t pay much attention to me, as they were fully engaged with either John Fiedler or Skip Nicholson. I was often the guy running to go get them a cup of coffee. The Cinematographers that did pay attention to me in those first few weeks were Victor Kemper, John Bailey, and Steven Poster.
Victor is the most memorable, as it was on the Friday of my first week, and Victor came in to screen dailies on an Apple Jack’s commercial he had shot the day before. As Victor settled into one of the theater chairs in front of the console Technicolor Screening room 6, and Skip told the projectionist to thread up Victor’s dailies, Victor called me over to come sit down next to him. I glanced over to Skip, to make sure it was OK, and Skip nodded. I say down next to Victor, and he wanted to know my name, how long had I been working there (less than a week), where was I from, how did I learn photography… Then he started asking me what I thought of his photpgraphy!
To be clear, I was astounded that here was the man who had photographed “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Coma,” The Eyes of Laura Mars,” being such a down to earth person and expressing genuine interest in me and what my interests were.
As you can see, I’ve never forgotten that day, as it was the first time a Cinematogarpher gave me the time of day. TO be clear, there were other gracious Cinematographers too, it’s just the Vic was the first.
The relationship continued to grow, and I was fortunate to handle the dailies on about a dozen of Victor’s feature films , and innumerable commercial shoots.
Victor initiated, and along with Steve Burum and Caleb Deschenel, sponsored me to become an Associate Member of the ASC.
When my late wife Anne and I bought our first home in Sherman Oaks, Victor and his wife Claire gave us some shutters for the living room windows.
After an answer porint screening for “The Final Countdown,” I expressed admiration for the USS Nimitz belt buckle that Vic was wearing, and he promptly took the belt off and gave it to me. Yeah, that’s the kind of guy Victor Kemper is.
To be clear, he has always been a very talented Cinematographer. Always, always, always a one light cameraman, with remarkable control over his lighting and exposures (rarely using a meter by the way), so that I would just establish a Day/Night Exterior, Day/Night Interior printer lights and never needed to send his film to the Hazeltine for color correction. This is how the top Cinematyographers did it back in the day… Poster, Bailey, Kovacs, Roizman, Zsigmond, Chronenweth, Willis, Burum, Deschanel, Brianne Murphy, Omens, and more…
I have dozens and dozens of Victor Kemper Cinematography anecdotes, but I’ll just share one more.
On the film “Cloak and Dagger,” I knew Vic was shooting next door on a stage at Universal. Yet when one day’s dailies start unspooling for me in the lab, it’s night interior footage at an airport, with a view out the windows of an airport tarmac, and a 707 taxiing by, anti-collision lights flashing, navigation lights illuminated. I was astonished, as I was absolutely sure they didn’t shoot o location the previous night!
WHeh Victor called to check on his dailies, and I asked him when did he go to an airporty to get those shots? He responded with, “we’re still shooting there, come on over to the stage…”
When I get to the stage, I see that Vic had worked with the production designer at building a forced perspective “miniature” outside the airport terminal glass windows, and used about a five foot miniature of a 707 from one of the “Airport” movies. Victor lit it seamlessly so that it completely looked like the real thing. Especially as they moved the plane with hidden wires so that it looked like it was taxiing on the tarmac. I loved those moments when I was fooled in dailies, and I wqas the first one to see the images on a screen.
Victor is a gentleman among gentlemen, smart, savvy, no stranger to embracing new technologies, and was a consummate Cinematographer. I’d say he is probably most responsible for making the ASC what it is today.
My heart goes out top his wonderful wife Claire and his children Jan, Steven, and Florrie… By the way, My wife Anne and I loved Claire’s name so much, that we named our second daughter Claire.
Thank you for the wonderful anecdotes about Victor, Rob. He was truly a special guy to all of us…