Belfast filmmaker Mark Cousins (The Story of Film: An Odyssey, The First Movie) may have made a historic find during a recent trek to the Southwest.
In talking with JB Turner, grandson of famed Mexican cinematographer Alex Phillips (Ripstein’s El castillo de la pureza, Buñuel’s Aventuras de Robinson Crusoe), Cousins was shown an Aspheron wide lens attachment reportedly used by Gregg Toland during the filming of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Turner has a letter adding proof of its authenticity.
“This rings true as the attachment is of the right age, and Phillips taught Gabriel Figueroa, for example, so he was in the very first rank and extremely well connected,” Cousins noted. “If true, this is a new meteor in the Wellesian world.”
Figueroa, a cinematographer with impressive credentials in Mexico and Hollywood, was a pupil of Toland. His letter of introduction to Toland was penned by Phillips.
Cousins discussed his cinematic find with Welles’ youngest daughter, Beatrice, a Nevada resident.
She and Cousins have encouraged Turner to share the lens attachment with the soon-to-be-completed Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Museum in honor not only of Toland’s work, but to shed light on Phillips’ accomplishments.
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