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John (Ferno) Fernhout
John (Ferno) Fernhout | Robert Capa and Joris Ivens during the shooting of the film "The 400 million", China (1938)
‘The 400 Million’
In late 1937, after finishing The Spanish Earth, Joris Ivens asks Fernhout to accompany him to China for a new film about the Japanese invasion of China, or, as Fernhout's contract of 11 January 1938 states: ‘... to photograph (film) scenes and individuals portraying the rise of the new China’.
They also agree that Fernhout will go to Hollywood with Ivens to develop and edit the film.
John (Ferno) Fernhout
Sea Voyage to Hong Kong
Fernhout departs from Marseille on the passenger ship Aramis to arrive in Hong Kong on 15 February 1938, one week after Ivens. Fernhout makes the voyage together with Robert Capa, and they are waved off by Germaine Krull, the German photographer who was once married to Ivens. Fernhout takes some pictures of his fellow passengers on board, including one of Capa in his dressing gown.
Difficult Terrain
In China, Ivens and Fernhout spend six months shooting the film. Filming in China is a lot more complicated than in Spain, where they worked in a small area and had
John (Ferno) Fernhout
relatively easy access to the front lines. Not so in China: sometimes they have to ride trains for days on end looking for the front, which keeps shifting. They are also inconvenienced by censorship, problems with obtaining permission from military authorities and by the fact that in many places they are not allowed to film at all.
Style
In Spain, Fernhout’s camerawork was still rather aesthetic, taking into account the grandeur of the Spanish landscape, but in China his tone changes. In this film, the last one that he will make with Ivens, his handling of the camera is much harsher and more sober, as if the horrors of the war are eating away at his aesthetics.
The Division of Roles
In China, Fernhout doesn’t take as many photographs as he did in Spain and hardly
John (Ferno) Fernhout
any of the war, probably because Capa is accompanying him and Ivens as a photographer. Capa also tries his hand at operating the film camera in China, but neither he nor Ivens are satisfied with the results, so the film camera is quickly entrusted to Fernhout again.
Off to Hollywood
On 13 October 1938, Ivens and Fernhout fly directly from Hong Kong to San Francisco, which is quite exceptional at the time. In Hollywood, they finish The 400 Million, which premieres in New York on 7 March 1939.
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