See Vintage Images From Hollywood Film Sets
Ernst Haas photographed just about everything he could get in front of his lens. When he died in 1986, he left a huge body of work depicting deserts in the Southwest, skyscrapers in New York, pedestrians in Paris, monks in Vietnam. And movie stars — lots of movie stars. Haas looked at a movie set with a documentarian’s eye. The selections here, from the collection Ernst Haas: On Set (out this spring, from Steidl), take visible pleasure in Hollywood’s absurd, arresting artifice. And by the way: That really is Joan Collins’s derrière, next to the HANDS OFF sign.
*This article appears in the April 6, 2015 issue of New York Magazine.
Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1981.
Watch a behind-the-scenes clip.
Photo: Ernst Haas/Getty Images
Directed by Arthur Penn, 1970.
Photo: Ernst Haas/Getty Images
Directed by Woody Allen, 1975.
Photo: Ernst Haas/Courtesy of Steidl
Directed by Howard Hawks, 1955.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by William Wyler, 1958.
Photo: Ernst Haas/Getty Images
Directed by John Huston, 1960.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by Gene Kelly, 1969.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by George Stevens, 1965.
Photo: Ernst Haas/Getty Images
Directed by Stanley Kramer, 1957.
Watch a behind-the-scenes clip.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by William Wyler, 1958.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by Carol Reed, 1949.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1981.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by Tony Richardson, 1968.
Photo: Ernst Haas
Directed by Arthur Penn, 1970.
Photo: Ernst Haas