Film director whose work included the wartime masterpiece Western Approaches
The director Pat Jackson, who has died aged 95, was best known for the semi-documentary war film Western Approaches (1944). This neglected classic – a feature-length portrait of the Battle of the Atlantic – was shot under the auspices of the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit and predominantly filmed at sea under hazardous conditions. The shoot's logistical nightmares were compounded by the vast size of the Technicolor camera. Jackson himself devised the story of the imminent convergence of a German U-boat and an English ship which is on the way to save a group of comrades in a lifeboat.
Jackson was in his late 20s when he shot Western Approaches with the outstanding cameraman Jack Cardiff and a cast of amateur actors. It was a remarkable achievement that remained unsurpassed throughout the writer-director's lengthy career. The film was well received in Britain and...
The director Pat Jackson, who has died aged 95, was best known for the semi-documentary war film Western Approaches (1944). This neglected classic – a feature-length portrait of the Battle of the Atlantic – was shot under the auspices of the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit and predominantly filmed at sea under hazardous conditions. The shoot's logistical nightmares were compounded by the vast size of the Technicolor camera. Jackson himself devised the story of the imminent convergence of a German U-boat and an English ship which is on the way to save a group of comrades in a lifeboat.
Jackson was in his late 20s when he shot Western Approaches with the outstanding cameraman Jack Cardiff and a cast of amateur actors. It was a remarkable achievement that remained unsurpassed throughout the writer-director's lengthy career. The film was well received in Britain and...
- 7/12/2011
- by Brian Baxter
- The Guardian - Film News
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