Billy Bitzer

Johann Gottlob Wilhelm " Billy" Bitzer (often working as GW Bitzer; * April 21, 1872 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, † April 29, 1944 in Hollywood, California ) was an American cinematographer who for 1896-1933 more than 900 films behind the camera stand.

Life and work

Bitzer was a son of German immigrants. His father, born in 1843 Johann Martin Bitzer came 1868 in the USA, where he died 16 years later. His son Billy started his career as a silversmith. From 1896 he worked in the film production company biographer as an electrician and then rose to become chief cameraman of the company. As a cameraman the early days of film, Bitzer was constantly looking for new settings and spectacular shots and this context also high risks. Among other things, he filmed called Phantom Rides from the " cow catcher " of a moving locomotive.

In 1908, Bitzer began collaboration with David Wark Griffith, which was set in this year 's biographer as a writer and actor. When Griffith began to be directing, Bitzer and Griffith formed as a cameraman and director, a team that wrote film history. The resulting 1909-1912 at Biograph films of Bitzer and Griffith formed a standard that tried to emulate almost any cinematographer and director.

As Griffith joined the company feature film, he took with Bitzer, who was the only cinematographer in the production of monumental Griffiths Birth of a Nation (1915 ). Bitzer sought to continue always looking for new settings and rose for Griffiths film Intolerance ( 1916) to having a balloon to accommodate the complete Babylon set can.

Cooperation Bitzer - Griffith finally ended in the 1920s, when Griffith, who had meanwhile founded his own production company said, not being able to get by with only a cameraman. Bitzer, who barely got deals in the early 1930s, made ​​his last film, Hotel Variety in 1933 and lived the next few years in a forced retirement until he was set in 1940 by the Museum of Modern Art for film research.

In 1973, almost 30 years after Bitzer's death, he published his autobiography, Billy Bitzer - His Story.

Filmography ( excerpt)