Billy Bitzer: His Story- The Autobiography of D.W. Griffith's Master Cameraman

by G.W. Bitzer, Beaumont Newhall (Introduction)

Definitive autobiograpohy of the man who defined the art of narrative film story telling as it was carved out of the visual tropes of the mellodrama and the age of narrative realism.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, History, Media Tie In

266 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Curmudgeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bitzer's not a great writer, and he doesn't always choose the most interesting aspects of his life and career to write about, but hey. You take what you can get. As a document of life as a cameraman at the beginning of the motion picture industry, as well as a glimpse into the working life of D.W. Griffith and his team of actors and associates while they changed the world of movies, it's a priceless piece of history, whatever its faults. There are a number of photos throughout, some of which I haven't seen published anywhere else.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This interesting memoir is tantalizing in its brevity, but a useful document nonetheless. Bitzer was one of the first professional cinematographers in America, from the time filmmaking was first invented, and worked famously with D.W. Griffith, the pioneer director of some of the best-remembered American films of the 19-teens. Close to the end of his life, he was asked to help collate archival materials on his work for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and began working on a memoir, which was interrupted by his final illness. This book is the published version of that (incomplete) manuscript, which might have benefited from further editing and more documentary support, had Bitzer had time to complete the project.
Nevertheless, what emerges is a sense of the personality and accomplishments of this historic figure. Bitzer's tone is conversational and folksy, and his many remembered anecdotes show him to have been a no-nonsense work-minded cameraman, with a sense of adventure, but not really of "glamour" as we think of it in the modern film-context. He started in the business at a time when cameras weighed close to a ton, shooting mostly newsreel footage (the Galveston flood being one example of his early work), and progressed to a time when innovative directors like Griffith were telling complex stories, using multiple-cameras, and when cameras had become small enough to hand-hold for certain shots. He shows considerable affection toward Griffith in his narrative, and for many of the famous actors (including Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford) that he worked with.
This work begins with an Introduction be Beaumont Newhall that gives a general historical context by going through the history of early film, which seemed superfluous to me, since anyone who knows who Bitzer is would have a certain amount of background knowledge, but maybe this was less true in 1973, when the book was published. Evidently there have been no new editions of the book since its initial printing, which is a shame, but this also probably reflects how imperfect the book is as either a popular work or as historical evidence. One leaves the book feeling that it is too bad the Bitzer couldn’t have devoted more time to refining and tailoring it before he passed on.