Patrick Carey (cinematographer)

Patrick Carey was born in London in 1916, to a family with an Irish background. His mother, Mia Carey, was a well known actress at the Gate Theatre, Dublin. She starred in one of the first films of the newly set up Irish Film Society, Manon's Acre, set in north Dublin. His brother was Denis Carey (actor). The family moved back to Ireland in 1923 when his father took up a government post in the Department of Finance.^[1] Carey became well known in the genre of short documentary films, with a lyrical gift for dramatic visualization of natural scenery: his two most well known films being Yeats Country (1965),^[2] exploring the relationship between the vision of poet W.B. Yeats and the landscape of Co. Sligo, and Oisin (1970)^[3] a film which focuses entirely on the imagery created by the natural world, without either words or music. Both films were nominated for an Academy Award^[4][5] In Errigal (1970) a brilliant weave of folklore and narrative is set against the stunning dominance of the Donegal mountains. Of Errigal, Carey wrote 'The mountains are the characters in the story, the drama is in the battle of the elements. I have tried to convey the feeling of personality in a landscape, supported only by music and natural sounds'.^[6]

Carey had earlier achieved considerable success with his Journey into Spring (1958) which was set in England, with a commentary by Gloucestershire poet Laurie Lee, for which he was nominated for two Academy Awards, and which earned him a BAFTA.^[7] He went on to work for the Film Board of Canada; memorable is the lyrical realism of The Kid from Canada (1958) and the haunting textures of Arctic Outpost: Pagnirtung, N.W.T. (1960).^[8] Perhaps, most outstanding was his documentary short on the Inuit people, The Living Stone (1959), also nominated for an Academy Award.^[9]

Carey's poetry is evident in the minimalist title of the wonderful Sky (1963), which he shot in Canada. He returned to Britain where he made the magnificent Wild Wings (1965), in the Gloucestershire Wildfowl Trust Reserve, which won an Academy Award.^[10] His last documentary short was Beara (1979), depicting the rich desolation of the barren West Cork peninsula.

Much of the dramatic cinematography in the film Ryan's Daughter (1970), directed by David Lean, is due to Carey's work on the film. In the early 1970s Patrick Carey returned to live in Canada. He died in 1996.

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