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.
Though great directors of photography tend to be regarded in the industry with due reverence, they’re rarely profiled with the depth or detail afforded equivalently accomplished directors; behind the camera is where they tend to stay. But with his gruff machismo, vaguely mystic demeanor and a mane of snowy hair that lends him the nickname referred to in the doc’s title, Richardson is more closeup-ready than many of his professional peers: “Bob always had a fantasy of being a rock star, being a cinematographer was secondary,” says his ex-wife Monona Wali, a statement backed up by his general swaggering presence (and, yes, acid-trip memories). He’s an imposing documentary subject, then, and one admires both the initiative and the ambition of Hojdová, who began this project as a recent cinematography graduate of Prague’s FAMU film school, in taking him on.
