‘Robert Richardson: The White Devil’ Review: Candid Documentary Turns the Camera on a Cinematography Legend

The Oscar-winning DP for Scorsese, Tarantino and Oliver Stone is a droll, unfiltered and engagingly eccentric subject for this portrait by Czech filmmaker Jana Hojdová, premiering in Karlovy Vary.

By Guy Lodge

Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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Among the various talking heads in “Robert Richardson: The White Devil” — a simultaneously awestruck and cheerfully confrontational documentary about the celebrated American cinematographer — are the three big dogs essential to any discussion of his work: Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone, who all speak affectionately and perceptively about his artistry, and their respective individual experiences of working with him. Yet perhaps the most quotable observation in Czech director Jana Hojdová’s film comes from Kate Hudson, star of Shekhar Kapur’s swashbuckler “The Four Feathers,” one of Richardson’s more forgotten assignments. “I’m sure you have to do a lot of psychedelics to see light the way he does,” she says — a joke that we learn is funny because it’s true.

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