The art director (or production designer) is responsible for the overall look of a film and collaborates with the director, cinematographer, costume designer, and anyone else involved in creating the appearance of a finished film. John Box, one of the leading art directors of the 1960s and 70s has, in his career, re-created China in Wales, Moscow in Spain, and built a futuristic sports arena in Munich.
Box has used his architectural training together with a perceptive eye for detail and great imagination to good effect. When turbulent politics in China prevented genuine location filming there for the "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" (1958), Box saw similarities in the intended Chinese locations to the landscape of Snowdonia, North Wales, of all places. He convinced the producers of the film that his Welsh stand-in would succeed and so sets were built that resembled Chinese towns. Shooting proceeded and the film was a smash.
The following year he designed "Our Man in Havana" for Carol Reed, work that was to bring him to the attention of Reed's great rival, David Lean. Lean was then planning "Lawrence of Arabia", and again Box's skill at doubling locations proved a valuable asset as he re-created Cairo in Spain and built a facsimile of Aquaba, a Jordanian port, on a deserted stretch of Spanish beach.
One of the biggest challenges he faced on "Lawrence" was dressing the desert, after all, what can one do with nothing but sand? For the crucial scene of Omar Sharif's appearance in a distant desert haze, Box inspirationally ordered the sand on either side of the track Sharif rides in on dyed black, encouraging the eye to the centre of the frame and on Sharif's shimmering mirage emerging from the horizon. The finished shot has become one of the classic images of cinema, and Box collected his first Oscar for "Lawrence".
Read about John Box's contribution to "Doctor Zhivago".
John Box was speaking to Professor Ian Christie at the , October 2000.
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