AllMovie

Axel Schill's non-fiction work The Man Who Shot Chinatown: The Life and Work of John A. Alonzo joins Light Keeps Me Company, Tell Them Who You Are, and other recent documentaries in paying homage to one of the world's great cinematographers. Active from the early 1960s until just before his death in early 2001, Alonzo beat the odds as a young man by migrating to the U.S. as a Mexican farmer's son and then working his way up to ultimately qualify as one of the most revered cinematographers in the American film industry. Among other accomplishments, he lit a string of contemporary classics including Harold and Maude (1971), The Bad News Bears (1976), Scarface (1983), and Steel Magnolias (1989). Schill cuts together interviews with such Alonzo collaborators as Richard Dreyfuss, Sally Field, and Michael Crichton, and illustrates many of their observations with clips from the esteemed director of photography's finest work.