An artist with a can-do attitude, James Wong Howe was more than an ace cinematographer—he expanded and shaped the cosmos of what was possible on the movie screen. Born in China in 1899, raised in Washington state, he found his way to Hollywood during the silent film era and immediately established himself as an innovator who grasped the sensuous properties of light and dark—especially dark. The Thin Man (1934) might have been a routine caper were it not for the lustrous shadow and sheen Howe lavished upon it, anticipating the nocturnal maneuvers of film noir. He adapted to whatever the picture demanded, strapping on roller skates to scoot around the boxing ring in Body and Soul (1947), capturing the fisticuffs, and racketing around Sweet Smell of Success (1957) with the nervy restlessness of a crime photographer tracking his prey. Howe didn’t excel only in close quarters. He won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Hud (1963), the most haunting depiction yet of wide open barren spaces and lonesome roads, the dust-choked American Dream. The Museum of Moving Image’s retrospective tribute “How It’s Done: The Cinema of James Wong Howe” will be presenting the films mentioned above and lesser known nifties such as Transatlantic (1931), starring Myrna Loy, and the scary psychological thriller Seconds (1966), where existential angst and Rock Hudson improbably but unforgettably meet. —James Wolcott