Babette Mangolte

Filmmaker

French·b. 1941

Known for:

Cinematographer for Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, photographer documenting the 1970s New York avant-garde

Education:

ENS Louis-Lumière, Paris

Babette Mangolte is a French cinematographer, filmmaker, and photographer who became one of the first women admitted to the cinematography program at L'École Nationale de la Photographie et de la Cinématographie (now ENS Louis-Lumière) in Paris in 1964. After working as an assistant camera on French features, she moved to New York in 1970 and quickly embedded herself in the downtown avant-garde scene, collaborating with Chantal Akerman, Yvonne Rainer, Joan Jonas, and others. Her cinematography on Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and News from Home (1977) is considered landmark work in feminist and experimental cinema. Her still photographs of performance art from the 1970s are held in major collections including MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and Tate Modern.

Babette Mangolte's Gear List(4)

Arriflex S

ARRI

Connection Source

MubiInterview

Connection note

Borrowed from Robert Rauschenberg (owned by Yvonne Rainer). Used to shoot Akerman's La chambre and Rainer's Lives of Performers (1972)

Product description

ARRI's 16mm MOS production camera, introduced in 1952. It was the first professional 16mm camera with a reflex viewing system, built around ARRI's twin-bladed "butterfly" mirror shutter. Uses a three-lens turret with ARRI standard mounts, accepting 100-foot internal spools or 400-foot external magazines. Over 20,000 units were sold, making it one of ARRI's most commercially successful cameras.

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Last updated March 20, 2026

Mitchell BNC

Mitchell

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OpeneditionOther

Connection note

Used on Jeanne Dielman (1975). Chosen over the lighter Arriflex 35 to guarantee image stability for the film's locked-off static compositions

Product description

The Mitchell BNC (Blimped Newsreel Camera) was the standard studio motion picture camera in Hollywood from the 1930s through the 1960s. Its rock-steady registration, optical viewfinder, and compatibility with studio lighting rigs made it the instrument of classical Hollywood cinematography.

Sony Portapak

Sony

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MetrographInterview

Connection note

Operated the Sony Portapak for Joan Jonas's Organic Honey, Vertical Roll (1972), performing continuous camera movement synchronized to Jonas's movement

Product description

Portable half-inch reel-to-reel video recording system introduced by Sony in 1967. The two-piece kit weighed about 25 pounds and recorded up to 30 minutes of black-and-white video. It was the first system that allowed a single person to shoot video outside a studio, and it became a foundational tool for video art, guerrilla television, and activist documentary.

Kodak Kodachrome (16mm)

Kodak

Connection Source

OpeneditionOther

Connection note

Push-processed for "thick imagery with grain and saturated colors." Used on her own filmmaking

Product description

Color reversal film first sold by Kodak in the 16mm format in 1935, making it the first commercially successful subtractive color motion picture film. Processed in K-14 chemistry, which produced dye images with exceptional archival stability. Kodak discontinued all Kodachrome products in 2009.