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Robert Burks

American cinematographer, Academy Award winner (1909-1968) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leslie Robert Burks A.S.C. (July 4, 1909 – May 11, 1968) was an American cinematographer known for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock.

Quick Facts Born, Died ...
Robert Burks
Born
Leslie Robert Burks

(1909-07-04)July 4, 1909
Chino, California, U.S.
DiedMay 11, 1968(1968-05-11) (aged 58)
Huntington Harbour, California, U.S.
OccupationCinematographer
AwardsAcademy Award for Best Cinematography for To Catch a Thief (1955)
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Biography

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Burks was born in Chino, California, on July 4, 1909.[1] At age 19, he began working as a special effects technician at Warner Bros. He was promoted to assistant cameraman in 1929, operating cameraman in 1934, and special effects director of photography in 1938. In 1944, he became a director of photography.[2]

By the age of 35, Burks had become one of the younger professionals in the industry to be fully accredited as a director of photography.[2][3] He left Warner Bros. in 1953 to join Paramount Pictures alongside director Alfred Hitchcock[4]

Burks' first credit as director of photography was for Jammin' the Blues (1944), a short film featuring jazz musicians.

He is known for his cinematography on several films directed by Alfred Hitchcock during the 1950s and 1960s.[5] Over a 25-year career as a director of photography, Burks worked on 55 feature films.[3] His credits include The Fountainhead, Beyond the Forest, The Glass Menagerie, The Spirit of St. Louis, and The Music Man.[6] He received Academy Award nominations for his work in Strangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955) and A Patch of Blue (1965), winning once for To Catch a Thief.

In 1968, Burks and his wife, Elisabeth, died in a fire at their home in Huntington Harbour, California. He was 58 years old.[3][7]

Legacy

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Cinematographic style

Burks’ cinematography has been recognized for its stylistic range.[1] His background in special effects informed his approach to pre-production planning.[8] He was involved extensively in pre-production, a level of participation that was not common among cinematographers of the time. To prepare lighting and camera setups, he often used miniature models of sets.[2] He was noted for his precision and technical accuracy.[4] Film scholar Christopher Beach has highlighted Burks' willingness to take artistic risks, which contributed to visually distinct moments in his work.[9]

Burks received four Academy Award nominations, including recognition for both black-and-white and color cinematography, winning once for Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955), which has been cited as "a magnificent example of VistaVision technique."[3]

The Wrong Man (1956)

Burks’ cinematography in Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man (1956) has been described as “bleakly neorealist,” blending documentary realism with elements of film noir, Italian neorealism, and modernist expressionism.[5] Hitchcock initially intended for the film to adopt a documentary style, in line with its basis in real events. The production included location shooting in New York City using then-new portable Garnelite lamps, as well as studio work. Burks lit the studio scenes to visually align with the naturalistic feel of the location footage.[10]

Beyond visual consistency, Burks' cinematographic choices were closely tied to the film's thematic elements. He employed cross-hatched shadows to evoke the film’s central themes of confinement and judgment.[10] The use of wide-angle lenses and extreme camera angles—less typical of Burks' other work—contributed a distinct noir aesthetic, ultimately shifting the film’s tone away from Hitchcock’s original vision of strict realism.[10]

The Birds (1963)

Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) featured over 1,500 shots—approximately three times the average number for films of that era—with more than 400 classified as trick or composite shots.[11] The film includes several close-ups of actress Tippi Hedren, which were often shot using heavy diffusion and a consistent lighting setup: a frontal, slightly off-camera key light, a camera-side eyelight, and backlighting.[12]

To achieve a realistic depiction of the birds, Burks proposed the combined use of real birds and special effects. In collaboration with special effects editor Brad Hoffman, he spent over a year manipulating existing bird footage to achieve the desired visual impact.[11]

Burks also worked on the film's final sequence set in Brenner's driveway, which required 32 exposures and a matte painting by Albert Whitlock.[11]

Hitchcock credited the technical skill of Burks and others with managing the film's budget: "If Bob Burks and the rest of us hadn't been technicians ourselves, the film would have cost $5 million [instead of $3 million]." Brad Hoffman also emphasized Burks’ importance to the production, stating that the film "never could have been made [without Burks]. It was his persistence in doing these shots over and over that made The Birds the classic it is today."[11]

Marnie (1964)

Marnie (1964), the final collaboration between Hitchcock and Burks, incorporated experimental use of color and camera techniques, including extreme telephoto and wide-angle lenses. The film’s visual style received mixed responses—some critics praised its boldness, while others considered the techniques visually inconsistent or distracting. James Morrison, writing in The International Directory of Films and Filmmakers, identified Marnie as reflective of the emerging 1960s art cinema movement and viewed its experimental style as ahead of its time.[5]

The film’s color design avoided warm or bright tones, instead emphasizing muted palettes that allowed for selective use of red and yellow.[13] This was particularly evident in flashback scenes, where desaturation was used to convey repressed memory and psychological tension.

Burks’ cinematography in Marnie employed a wider range of techniques than in many of his previous films. These included tightly framed shots using 50mm fixed lenses, as well as more dynamic movements such as zooms, crane shots, Dutch angles, and dolly-zoom combinations.[13]

As in The Birds, close-ups of Tippi Hedren were a recurring stylistic feature. Biographer Donald Spoto described Hitchcock’s instruction to Burks as directing the camera “to come as close as possible,” noting a particular close-up in which Hedren’s character is kissed by Sean Connery: “the close-up is so tight, the frame filled so fully with pressing lips, that the tone is virtually pornographic.”[12]

Burks and Hitchcock

Burks is widely recognized for his work with director Alfred Hitchcock, serving as cinematographer on twelve of Hitchcock’s films during the 1950s and 1960s.[14] His background in special effects has been noted as a complement to Hitchcock’s own interest in visual innovation and technical precision.[2]

Their collaboration began with Strangers on a Train (1951), which earned Burks his first Academy Award nomination; he later won the award for To Catch a Thief (1955).[15] Their subsequent work together includes:[3]

Other collaborators

In addition to his work with Hitchcock, Burks collaborated with several other directors on multiple projects:[5]

Burks also maintained a long-standing working relationship with camera operator Leonard J. South, who collaborated with him on all twelve of his films with Hitchcock. Screenwriter John Michael Hayes, another frequent Hitchcock collaborator, remarked that Burks "gave Hitchcock marvelous ideas [and] contributed greatly to every picture [he shot] during those years."[16]

Other important works

Early in his career as a director of photography at Warner Bros., Burks worked on several notable films, including The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1949), Beyond the Forest (Vidor, 1949), The Glass Menagerie (Irving Rapper, 1950), and The Enforcer (Bretaigne Windustand Raoul Walsh, 1950). His work on The Fountainhead was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of the ten best-photographed black-and-white films of 1949.[2]

Filmography

Films as special effects photographer[5]

Films as cinematographer:[5]

Awards and nominations

More information Year, Award ceremony ...
Year Award ceremony Category Recipients Result Ref.
1951 Academy Awards Best Black-and-White Cinematography Strangers on a Train Nominated [17]
1954 Best Color Cinematography Rear Window Nominated [18]
1955 To Catch a Thief Won [19]
1965 Best Black-and-White Cinematography A Patch of Blue Nominated [20]
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References

External links and further reading

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