We had been affected by the fact that the film world was a man's world in Europe as much as here, in America actually.
Babette MangolteIn the '60s when I started to see everything I could see, you could see pretty much everything which was still available from the '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, and therefore I had an education which was really large and vast in different cinema. That's probably the reason I did not fall for the New Wave. It's really the love of the movies that made me want to become a cameraperson, definitely. I was really a film buff.
Babette Mangolte1968 in Paris renewed my options. There was suddenly a desire of inventing new things, and I while I was working as an editor, the assistant editor thought I had a gift, and when he shot his own film, he hired me as his assistant camera, and I trained myself to do the light for him.
Babette MangolteWhen the cinematography school told me I would have no chance to get a job, I said, "It's irrelevant." My mom was a feminist in the '20s. She taught me to be on my own, to be independent, to do what I wanted to do. I did not believe it would be difficult. It was difficult. In '66, I almost starved for a year and a half, and the only way I did not starve was because I could not find a job in camera, but I found a job in editing.
Babette Mangolte