Biography

José Luis Alcaine was born on December 26, 1938 in Tangier, Morocco. He is a cinematographer, known for The Skin I Live In (2011), Volver (2006) and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989). He has been married to Mariló Osuna since December 15, 2006. He was previously married to Cecilia Bartolomé.

First cinematographer to use fluorescent tube as "key" lightning in the 1970s.

Frequently works with Pedro Almodóvar.

Was educated in the French Lycée Regnault and the Spanish Institute in Tangier, Morocco.

Member of AEC (Asociación Española de directoras y directores de Fotografía).

Jose Luis Alcaine has a theory that the Frank Borzage movie A Farewell to Arms (1932) after a story by Ernest Hemingway, was the main and total inspiration for Pablo Picasso in the creation of the "Guernica", one of the most important painting of the 20th century. He believes that several images of a sequence of 5 minutes long showing the exodus of countrymen and soldiers on an infernal rainy night was the inspiration of Pablo Picasso. This sequence can be found in the second half of the movie - from minute 51 to minute 56 -. If you search "Jose Luis Alcaine and the Guernica" in the internet you will find the theory very well explained.

[how digital technology has changed his work] Most of all, the digital revolution has changed the way that directors work. There's a famous memo in which David O. Selznick warned King Vidor not to do more than five takes of each shot while filming Duel in the Sun (1946). Today, thanks to the low cost of digital technology, one can shoot countless takes, and with several cameras! Many movies are shot with three, four, or even eight cameras. That destroys any notion of the director's point of view. There are still directors who shoot with only one camera, such as Asghar Asghar Farhadi, Pedro Pedro Almodóvar, or Brian De Palma Brian De Palma, with whom I'll shoot Sweet Vengeance. But there are directors who have no idea what they're going to edit while they're shooting. They use three or four cameras and the end result looks like a television broadcast. [2018]