Michael Marton

Michael Marton is a German-born, American camera operator and documentarist based in Washington, D.C. After receiving a diploma in Photography in Berlin in 1960, Marton worked as an assistant camera operator for the German Television Documentary Department from 1962-65, and then as an assistant camera operator for the Dutch Director of Photography Gerard Vandenberg until 1969. Marton moved to the United States in 1970, where he was initially based on a farm in upstate New York. Since 1975, Marton has worked as the producer, editor, camera operator and director on a wide variety of television broadcasts. A number of his earliest works, such as “Stonewall Joe” (1975) and “Arvilla” (1977), focused on members of the upstate New York community in which he was living. From 1984 Marton began making broadcasts for international networks, gaining critical acclaim for “Watch Me Now” (1984/86), a documentary that followed Mike Tyson’s early years at a boxing gym in Catskill, NY. Since the 1990s, Marton has worked primarily on documentaries for German television on topics such as the immigrant experience - “Three in America” (1995) - and the effects of recent German history on individuals - “The Love Letter Writer” (1999/2000). Marton screened his documentary, “Stonewall Joe” (1975), about one of the last stonewall builders and traditional fiddle players in upstate New York, as part of Return/Jump, a video retrospective curated by Tom Bowes that took place at The Kitchen in 1982. For more information visit: http://michaelmarton.com/site/MICHAEL-MARTON.html