George Arvanitis: A Life in the Light (ePub)

Elisavet Chronopoulou, a film director and writer, converses with cinematographer George Arvanitis, who narrates a life like a movie: his own life. How from the ashes of Greek provincialism during the Occupation he becomes a famous director of photography? How after Finos Film, where he collaborated with the stars of old Greek cinema, he illuminated the films of Theodoros Angelopoulos, how he met and worked with the legends of world cinema? He was born on February 22, 1941, in Makrakomi, Phthiotis, a few weeks before the German invasion of Greece. The Civil War finds his father a guerrilla fighter in the mountains, his mother in prison, and six-year-old George in Nea Penteli, where he grows up under the care of his mother's siblings. After elementary school, he enrolls in the Diples Technical School, while also working in construction. At 17, he begins attending a drama school and works as a "jack-of-all-trades" on the set of a movie. Soon he becomes a camera assistant, until at 25, in 1966, Finos appoints him director of photography. He will work on major successes of commercial cinema (like "O Thalassies Oi Hantres", "I Daskala Me Ta Xantha Mallia", "I Archontissa Kai O Alitis", "I Neraida Kai To Palikari", etc.), until in 1968 his collaboration with Angelopoulos begins, which will soon earn him his first photography award: at the Thessaloniki Film Festival for "Reconstruction". A few years later, he will resign permanently from Finos Film to devote himself to cinema, something that, as he says, suited him. This is followed by his "cinematic maturation" and a brilliant international career. "Where do you want to start from?" Arvanitis had asked me one morning in June 2019, when I pressed rec for the first time. "I have no idea," I replied. Now, reaching the end, I have an idea of ¿¿what this book is finally about. It's not the narration of a life, it's the narration of an interpretation of living, a personal view of the world. It's a "look". - Elisavet Chronopoulou