Joseph Nathanson(1909-2003)
- Visual Effects
- Special Effects
- Camera and Electrical Department
Joseph Natanson, who has died in Rome aged 94, began life as a
Surrealist painter before being recruited in 1947 to do the special
effects for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's film The Red Shoes.
The picture won an Oscar for its designs, but Natanson vowed never to
become involved with such a project again. Yet he went on to provide
the illusionistic art work for some of the best-known directors of the
second half of the 20th century. This followed Natanson's move in the
early 1950s from London to Italy, where he collaborated with many
leading Italian filmmakers, including Vittorio De Sica, Sergio Leone,
Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Franco Zeffirelli, as well as numerous other
visitors to Cinecitta, from John Huston to Joseph Mankiewicz. In the
end, he was involved in more than 80 films, the last of them
Jean-Jacques Annaud's Name of the Rose.
His principal task was painting and filming "matte-shots", miniature scenes and additional elements on glass, that were blown up by the camera to create magnificent backdrops cityscapes, vistas and details that would have been prohibitively expensive to construct, or impossible to engineer and co-ordinate while shooting the main action. Natanson was dispatched to Italy a number of times in the early 1950s, to participate in various international co-productions at Cinecitta in Rome, the new "Hollywood on the Tiber".
His principal task was painting and filming "matte-shots", miniature scenes and additional elements on glass, that were blown up by the camera to create magnificent backdrops cityscapes, vistas and details that would have been prohibitively expensive to construct, or impossible to engineer and co-ordinate while shooting the main action. Natanson was dispatched to Italy a number of times in the early 1950s, to participate in various international co-productions at Cinecitta in Rome, the new "Hollywood on the Tiber".
