Freddy francis

Those gloomy corridors of the mansion in  Suspense! , by Jack Clayton , are a good example that Francis was a specialist in creating suggestive atmospheres for intrigue and horror films. Some of his work has a lot to do with the primacy of the image and aesthetics in modern cinema.

At the age of 89, Freddie Francis died at his London home on March 17 as a result of a heart attack. He had just written his autobiography.

Born in London on December 22, 1917, Frederick Francis studied engineering and then went to work as a camera apprentice at the British subsidiary of the French production company Gaumont in 1939. Although the Second World War temporarily interrupted his career, he ended up making his debut as a cinematographer, in 1956, with A Hill in Korea , a war drama. He won his first Oscar for his spectacular black-and-white work, for Sons and Lovers , directed by Jack Cardiff . In 1961 he was responsible for the disturbing photography, also in black and white, for Suspense , a terrifying adaptation of the novel ‘Another Turn of the Screw’, by Henry James , directed by Jack Clayton.

Freddie Francis made his directorial debut in 1962, when he was hired by a production company to film additional scenes for Space Seed , a horror film highly appreciated by fans. He was so good at this genre that as a filmmaker he specialized almost completely, becoming one of the most important directors of the British production company Hammer, along with the unrepeatable Terence Fisher . For this entity he filmed The Psychopath , The Curse of the Skull and Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors , the best installment of a saga starring Christopher Lee , who also took Francis’ orders in Dracula Returns from the Grave , andThe prehistoric skeleton .

In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, Francis turned to directing, leaving cinematography aside. But he returned to this terrain triumphantly in 1980, with the spectacular black-and-white cinematography of The Elephant Man , one of David Lynch ‘s best works . After The French Lieutenant’s Wife and Dune , again with Lynch, he received his second Cinematography Oscar for Edward Zwick ‘s Times of Glory , in which he demonstrated his mastery of color, as he would later do in Scorsese ‘s Cape Fear . . His last work was the spectacular open space photography of A True Story .that he was reunited with Lynch.