Ariel Varges
Ariel Lowe Varges | |
|---|---|
Chicago, Illinois | |
| Died | December 27, 1972 (aged 82) |
Ariel Lowe Varges (1890–1972) was a photojournalist and pioneering newsreel cameraman for the Hearst media, who covered the First World War extensively.
Biography
Ariel Lowe Varges was born on June 11, 1890, in Chicago, Illinois. His grandfather Charles was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States in the 1850s. Shortly after his graduation from high school Ariel became a photographer for the Chicago Examiner. Around 1911 he moved to New York City and started working for the Hearst newspapers in this city. Varges was one of the first American still photographers who took up a movie camera. He shot his first film in 1914 while covering the Mexican War together with his colleague Ansel Wallace.[1]
From 1914, Varges filmed for the Hearst-Selig News Pictorial and he remained a globe trotting war photographer for the Hearst newsreels throughout his career. Varges came to wartime Europe in December 1914. By using his close contacts with
Post-war, Ariel Varges' name and reputation became a synonym in the American newspapers for the globetrotting war photographer. He was the first foreign cameraman to film communist leader
Ariel Varges died at the age of 82 on December 27, 1972, in Norwich, Connecticut. He was buried at Preston Cemetery.[5]
Film work
Varges' films taken during the First World War were shown extensively in the American movie theaters. Upon reaching Belgrade he filed his first report for the Hearst-Selig News Pictorial No. 34 which was shown in the American theaters on April 29, 1915. This newsreel has scenes showing Sir Thomas Lipton with Serbian Red Cross officials, as well as the first pictures shown in the U.S. of Crown Prince Alexander I, king regent of Serbia. Varges also took exclusive films of Major Vojislav Tankosić, one of the founders of the Black Hand group which was instrumental in recruiting Gavrilo Princip, the man who killed Austrian Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, thus propelling Europe into the First World War.[6]
Varges' newsreels taken with the Serbs have been posted online by the Jugoslavenska Kinoteka on the website of the European Film Gateway. While researching their book American Cinematographers in the Great War, film historians Ron van Dopperen and Cooper C. Graham discovered a large number of newsreel footage that was shot by Varges during World War I. Apart from films found at the Library of Congress footage shot by Varges was traced through News on Screen, an online database by the British Universities Film & Video Council, that has 47 records of scenes taken by Varges between 1916 and 1919.[7]
The authors also discovered many World War I films taken by Varges in the collection of the Imperial War Museum.[8]
Sources
- Kevin Brownlow, The War, the West and the Wilderness (London/New York 1979)
- James W. Castellan, Ron van Dopperen, Cooper C. Graham, American Cinematographers in the Great War, 1914-1918 (New Barnet 2014) https://doi.org/10.2307%2Fj.ctt1bmzn8c
- Weblog on the American Films and Cinematographers of World War I, 2013-2018
- Jane Carmichael, First World War Photographers (London/New York 1989)
- War in the Balkans, filmed by Ariel Varges (newsreel scenes taken with the Serbian army in 1915)
- Movie Trailer "American Cinematographers in the Great War, 1914-1918"
References
- ISBN 978-0-86196-717-9.
- ^ Hayden Talbot, "Making a World War", Fort Worth Telegram (13 July 1915), 4.
- ^ Jane Carmichael, First World War Photographers (London/New York 1989)
- ISBN 978-0-86196-717-9.
- ISBN 978-0-86196-717-9.
- ^ Synopsis Hearst-Selig News Pictorial, Moving Picture World (24 July 1915), 712.
- ISBN 978-0-86196-717-9.
- ^ Jane Carmichael, First World War Photographers (London/New York 1989)
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