Born March 27, 1902 in Bluff, Utah, Charles Bryant Lang, Jr. was one of the great cinematographers of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Tied with Leon Shamroy for the most Oscar nominations for cinematography (18), he was an expert in the use of chiaroscuro (strong contrasts between light and shade) in creating moods for every genre from somber melodramas to chic comedies to films noir to westerns.

Having worked in his father’s photography shop, he became an assistant cameraman in his twenties, graduating to full-fledged cinematographer at 27 and by the age of 28 had his first Oscar nomination for 1930’s The Right to Love, a Ruth Chatterton tearjerker, for which he remains the youngest person ever nominated in that category. Two years later he became the youngest winner at 30, a record that still holds, for the 1932 classic, A Farewell to Arms for which the lighting techniques he employed became the Paramount standard during his tenure, which lasted another twenty years.

The favorite cinematographer of Helen Hayes, Marlene Dietrich and later, Audrey Hepburn, among others, Lang’s work under his Paramount contract (1929-1952) included She Done Him Wrong; Death Takes a Holiday; The Lives of a Bengal Lancer; Peter Ibbetson; Desire; Souls at Sea; Midnight; Arise, My Love (his third Oscar nod); Sundown (his fourth); So Proudly We Hail (his fifth); The Uninvited (his sixth); Blue Skies; A Foreign Affair (his eighth Oscar nomination – his seventh had been on loan-out to Fox for The Ghost and Mrs.Muir); September Affair; The Mating Season and Ace in the Hole.

Branching out on his own, he received his ninth Oscar nod right off the bat for 1952’s Sudden Fear. He continued to excel as an independent on some of the best remembered films of the 1950s including The Big Heat; Sabrina (his tenth Oscar nomination); The Long Gray Line (uncredited); The Man From Laramie; Queen Bee (his eleventh Oscar nod); The Rainmaker; Gunfight at the O.K. Corral; Wild Is the Wind; Separate Tables (his twelfth Oscar nomination) and Some Like It Hot (his thirteenth).

Lang’s 1960s output was as impressive as that of previous decades, including such films as The Magnificent Seven; The Facts of Life (his fourteenth Oscar nod); One-Eyed Jacks (his fifteenth); Summer and Smoke; How the West Was Won (his sixteenth Oscar nomination); Charade; Wait Until Dark; The Stalking Moon; Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (his seventeenth Oscar nomination) and Cactus Flower.

Slowing down in the 1970s, Lang earned his eighteenth and final Oscar nomination for 1972’s Butterflies Are Free at the age of 70 and was director of cinematography for the last time on his next film, 1973’s 40 Carats.

Lang’s daughter Judy Lang; grand-daughter Katherine Kelly Lang and great-grandson Jeremy Snider carry on the Hollywood tradition as actors. Lang himself died April 23, 1998 at the age of 96.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1932), directed by Frank Borzage

Lang’s use of chiaroscuro (strong contrasts between light and shade) was ground-breaking; his lighting of stars Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper breathtaking, but his camerawork throughout was sublime. His battle photography really captures the horror of war.

His lighting techniques were copied by other cinematographers, particularly at Paramount where he reigned supreme for the next twenty years.

THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955), directed by Anthony Mann

Lang earned his eleventh Oscar nomination for 1955’s The Queen Bee in the black-and-white category, losing to James Wong Howe for The Rose Tattoo, but his most impressive work that year was in this Technicolor masterwork.

Lang’s uncredited color cinematography for John Ford’s West Point biopic, The Long Gray Line earlier in the year, is on par with the best of Ford’s color films including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon; The Quiet Man and The Searchers. His New Mexico vistas for Mann’s elegiac western, The Man From Laramie starring James Stewart; Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp and Aline MacMahon, rival the Monument Valley locations of Ford’s westerns.

SEPARATE TABLES (1958), directed by Delbert Mann

When most people think of films with great cinematography, they think of films with lots of movement across wide vistas. Lang gave them films like that, but he also gave them masterly crafted films that take place entirely within tight spaces. One of the best examples of the latter is the English seaside hotel out of season in Delbert Mann’s film of Terence Rattigan’s Separate Tables with its observant eye on characters played by Rita Hayworth; Deborah Kerr; David Niven; Burt Lancaster; Wendy Hiller; Gladys Cooper; Cathleen Nesbitt; Felix Aylmer; May Hallatt; Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton. Niven and Hiller won Oscars for their performances; Hiller even though she was mostly photographed with her back to Lang’s camera.

SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959), directed by Billy Wilder

Lang’s flawless camerawork underscores the film’s opening and closing action sequences as well as all the quiet and no so quiet comedic scenes throughout Wilder’s hilarious comedy, often referred to as the funniest movie ever made.

Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis pass muster as musicians on the lam in drag and Marilyn Monroe never looked as gorgeous as she does here as their bandmate and Curtis’ object of desire under Lang’s perceptive lens.

BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE (1972), directed by Milton Katselas

Fittingly Lang, who holds the record for youngest Oscar nominee for cinematography without the distinction between color and black-and-white (he was 28) and youngest winner (he was 30), earned his last nomination at age 70 without that distinction.

Once again Lang’s wherewithal easily overcomes the confined spaces of a film based on a stage play with one set. The film leaves its confines to go on both a walking and a driving tour of San Francisco, but the majority of scenes within the apartments of Goldie Hawn and Edward Albert don’t seem confining at all. Eileen Heckart’s Oscar as Albert’s over-protective mother was well earned and so was Lang’s final nomination.

CHARLES LANG AND OSCAR

• The Right to Love (1929/30) – nominated – Best Cinematography
• A Farewell to Arms (1932/33) – Oscar – – Best Cinematography
• Arise, My Love (1940) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• Sundown (1941) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• So Proudly We Hail (1943) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• The Uninvited (1944) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• A Foreign Affair (1948) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• Sudden Fear (1952) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• Sabrina (1954) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• Queen Bee (1955) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• Separate Tables (1958) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• Some Like It Hot (1959) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• The Facts of Life (1960) – nominated – Best Black-and-White Cinematography
• One-Eyed Jacks (1961) – nominated – Best Color Cinematography
• How the West Was Won (1963) – nominated – Best Color Cinematography
• Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) – nominated – Best Cinematography
• Butterflies Are Free (1972) – nominated – Best Cinematography