Wolfgang Suschitzky obituary: a cameraperson of the world
Patrick Russell commemorates the photographer and cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky, who has died aged 104, and we republish a centenary tribute and list of 19 of his finest film accomplishments.
While simultaneously pursuing his photographic career, Suschitzky entered the movies while still in his twenties as a cameraman at Paul Rotha Productions – part of the Documentary Film Movement, whose civic commitment attracted him. In 1944 he was one of the Rotha employees, led by the charismatic Donald Alexander, who departed to form DATA (Documentary and Technicians Alliance), Britain’s first film cooperative. He was an active member for 12 years. Hoping to produce radical documentaries, DATA became best known for quintessential post-war consensus filmmaking: the National Coal Board’s cine-magazine Mining Review (which occasioned its makers’ exposure to, and deepening respect for, Britain’s coalfield communities).
Rotha’s fiction debut was also Suschitzky’s first feature: the unusual Irish tinker drama No Resting Place (1951). Jack Clayton’s The Bespoke Overcoat (1955) won an Oscar for Best Short, while Suschitzky’s first foray into TV came via episodes of a Charlie Chan series. Through the next decade, he alternated quirky features, ads and a steady stream of nonfiction shorts (an increasing number of them in glossy colour, directed by such established but underrated documentarists as Sarah Erulkar, Peter de Normanville and Paul Dickson). He also worked with rising talent: for Hugh Hudson, for instance, he shot several corporate films and many commercials. From the late 1960s, Suschitzky was increasingly in demand as a feature DP, though he never abandoned his nonfiction origins, still photographing industrial training films as late as the 1980s.
Suschitzky has been retired since 1987. This lifelong filmgoer remains a dedicated one, regularly spotted at screenings. Usually with partner Heather Anthony, sometimes solo, he comes by bus, takes the stairs, and often ends his evening with some red wine. “Art can be produced with any medium,” he insists, “but only in the hands of an artist. Unfortunately there are not many of those about. I certainly don’t claim to be an artist. I am content if I am considered a craftsman.”