Jerry Schatzberg, student of the shadows

He directed American film classics of the 1970s, such as Puzzle of a Downfall Child, Scarecrow and The Panic in Needle Park, but is also a noted photographer and he accepted the Festival's invitation to take pictures of of Lyon, city of the Lumière brothers.

Schatzberg (born in New York in 1927) first worked for his family furrier business and then took up photography in the 1950s, becoming known as one of the most brilliant fashion photographers of his time.  In the 1960s, he worked regularly for Vogue, McCall's and Cosmopolitan magazines, photographing a range of celebrities.  He also did the cover of singer Bob Dylan's legendary Blonde on Blonde album.

He was quickly drawn to film, bringing his sense of frame and observation to the first work he directed, Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), about the tragedy of a cover-girl played by Faye Dunaway.

The film set the tone for his subsequent films, with their theme of the hopes and disappointments of liberal America, and also displayed an exceptional elegance of style for US films of the 1970s.  They included The Panic in Needle Park (1971), a realistic but sensitive tale of drugs, which gave Al Pacino one of his earliest parts. 

Pacino returned to appear with Gene Hackman in Scarecrow (1973), which won the Golden Palm at Cannes in 1973.  The film's story of the adventures and anguish of two wanderers once more showed the social concerns of Schatzberg, who is at his best portraying the disadvantaged and excluded.

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Jerry Schatzberg

Schatzberg , Al Pacino and Kitty Winn during shooting of The Panic in Needle Park;  Schatzberg (left) with cinematographer Adam Holender on the set of The Seduction of Joe Tynan