By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
Douglas Slocombe, the chameleonic British cinematographer who filmed the Nazi invasion of Poland, the adventures of "Indiana Jones" and the madcap farce of Ealing comedies, has died. Slocombe was 103.
His daughter, Georgina Slocombe, said Slocombe died early Monday in a London hospital. A recent fall led to setbacks that ended with his death, she said.
"He said the other day that he loved every day of his work, every day on the set," said Georgina Slocombe, a photographer. "He really enjoyed his work and his life."
Slocombe was one of British cinema's most acclaimed cinematographers. He shot some 80 films, working with directors as varied as George Cukor, John Huston, Norman Jewison and Roman Polanski. His career began with the famed Ealing black comedies of the late 1940s and early '50s, and ended with three "Indiana Jones" films for Steven Spielberg.
"Dougie Slocombe was facile, enthusiastic, and loved the action of filmmaking," Spielberg said. "Harrison Ford was Indiana Jones in front of the camera, but with his whip-smart crew, Dougie was my behind the scenes hero for the first three Indy movies."
The London-born, France-raised Slocombe was nominated for three Academy Awards and won three from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for 1974's "The Great Gatsby," 1963's "The Servant" and 1977's "Julia." The British Society of Cinematographers gave him a lifetime achievement award in 1995.
While in his 20s, Slocombe documented Germany's 1939 Polish invasion as a newsreel cameraman. His footage was used in Herbert Kline's documentary, "Lights Out in Europe."
"I had no understanding of the concept of blitzkrieg. I had been expecting trouble but I thought it would be in trenches, like WWI," he told the BBC in 2014. "The Germans were coming over the border at a great pace."
After the war, he became the house cinematographer for Ealing Studios, lensing many of its classic comedies, such as "Kind Hearts and Coronets," ''The Man in the White Suit" and "The Lavender Hill Mob."
Following Ealing's demise, Slocombe signed on to a number of CinemaScope releases, such as "A High Wind in Jamaica" and "Guns at Batasi." Other credits through the '60s and '70s included "The Lion in Winter," ''The Italian Job" and "Rollerball."
"A lot of cameramen try to evolve a technique and then apply that to everything," Slocombe once said. "But I suffer from a bad memory and could never remember how I'd done something before, so I could always approach something afresh. I found I was able to change techniques on picture after picture."
Later, Spielberg, for whom Slocombe shot scenes of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," enlisted him for "Raiders of the Lost Ark," as well as two "Indiana Jones" sequels. His last film was 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."
California governor signs law to protect children from social media addiction
California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Friday.
California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children's access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.
The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users' personal information in ways that could harm children. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.
"Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night," Newsom said in a statement. "With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits."
The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children's accounts to private by default.
Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their... Read More