A Man With a Camera 0374201722

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Nestor Almendros leading

is

probably the world’s

cinematographer.

graphed such

highly

He

has

acclaimed

photofilms

Sophie’s Choice, Kra?ner vs. Kra?Her,

Blue Lagoon

as

The

(he was nominated for an

Academy Award for all three), and won an Academy Award for Terrence Malick’s Days

of Heaven.

He

photography for the (Pauline at the Beach, Claire’s

Knee,

has been director of films of Eric

My

Night

at

Rohmer Maud’s,

T he Marquise of O), François

Truffaut (The Last Métro, for which he

Award, Confidentially Yours, The Story of Adèle H, The Wild

received the César

Child), and other celebrated filmmakers.

A Man with a Camera at

how movies

are

offers a

unique look

made. Here Almendros

describes, simply but comprehensively, the specific techniques he has used in his forty-

odd

films.

Each

film presented

its

own

set of

problems, and Almendros details the technical

and aesthetic solutions he devised

overcome them. In

to

brief sketches, the author

portrays stars like Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Dustin

Hoffman, and

offers reflec-

on working with the major directors of our time. An insider’s look at moviemaking, this book will fascinate anyone who goes to

tions

the movies.

«

i

I

*

¥

i

0

1

I

!

»

•tf

v^’i

A MAN JVITH A CAMERA

A

MAN

mm

A CAMER A Nestor Almendros Translated from the Spanish by

Rachel Phillips Belash

FARRAR

.

STRAUS New

York

•

GIROUX

—

Preface copyright Translation copyright

© 1084 by François Truffaut

© 1984 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.

Translated from the Spanish, Dias de una cámara, copyright

©

1982 by Editorial SeLx Barrai SA, Tambor del Bruch 10, Sant Joan Despi, Barcelona; and copyright 1980, 1982 by Nestor Almendros

©

Un homme

Originally published in French,

copyright

©

1980 by

FOMA,

à

camera,

la

5 Continents,

CH-1020

Renens-Lausanne

All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

Published simultaneously

in

Canada by

Collins Publishers, Toronto

Designed by Tere LoPrete First printing, 1984

The photograph on page 254 United Artists release

Still

of the Night,

is

©

from the 1982 by

United Artists Corporation Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

1.

Almendros, Nestor. A man with a camera. Translation of: Dias de una cámara; originally pubhshed in French as: Un homme à la camera. Filmography: p. 289 Almendros, Nestor. 2. Cinematographers Spain Biography. I. Title.

TR849.A44A3513

—

1984

778.5 3 0924 [B]

84-1689

Contents

The Lights of Nestor Almendros Some Thoughts on My Profession Prehistory FESsiONAL Life vu par

Varis

.

.

.

mi

25 51 51

La Collectionneuse

55

The Wild Racers

^3

More

67

My Night at Maud’s

75

The Wild Child

81

Claire’s

Knee

Bed and Board The Valley, Obscured by Clouds

Two

English Girls

Chloé Poil

in the

Afternoon

de carotte

89 93

95 101

107 111

L’Oiseau rare

112

Femmes au soleil

115

La Gueule ouveHe The Gentleman Tramp

119 123

Amin Dada

127

General ldi Cockfight er

^33

Mes Petites amoureuses

137

j

Contents

Vî

The Story

of

^4^

Adèle H.

^47

Maîtresse

The Marquise

of O.

Des Journées entières dans

1

les arbres

53

i6i

Cambio de sexo Days of Heaven The Man Who Loved Women

i

Koko, the Talking Gorilla

19s

Le Centre Georges Pompidou

199

Madame Rosa

203

Goin South

2oy

The Green Room

21 j

Perceval

221

Love on the Run

22J

Kramer

vs.

Kramer

^3

i6y

i8y

2^1

The Rlue Lagoon

239

The Last Métro

249

Still of

the Night

253

Sophie’s Choice

259

Pauline at the Reach

267

Confidentially Yours

26

Post Scriptum

Glossary of Technical Terms Filmography

Acknowledgments

273

277 289 305

The Lights of Nestor Almendros

X

hirt y-five

years

ago, the only place to see

dimensional images was in a movde theater. tried to interpret reality

record

by

stylizing

it,

Some

moving twofilm directors

while others wanted to

purely and simply. In both the “Hollywood” and “neorealist” approaches, cinema was above all magic: films were more it

or less beautiful

depending on the

talent involved, but they

rarely ugly, since to photograph something ugly in black

white

is

white

is

to

make

it

less

ugly than

a transposition of

it is

in reality. Since

were and

black and

was already an artistic efiFect. Television, home movies, and video have definitively destroyed the mystery, and the movie theater no longer has a monopoly on the moving image. Filmmakers can still intrigue us, but only if they do not copy life. That has now become the province of television, which has used and abused the form almost to the realit}^, it

point of nausea.

Nestor Almendros

one of the greatest directors of photography in the world, one of those who fight so that the cinematography in today’s films is not less worthy than in the days of is

Wilhelm Gottlieb Bitzer, D. W. Griffith’s cameraman. Almendros’s book is a response to those questions no contemporary filmmaker can avoid asking:

How

to

prevent ugliness on the screen.

purify the image in order to increase

its

emotional force.

How How

to

to

The Lights

^¡¡1

of Nestor

Almendros

before the Uventieth render plausibly stories that take place natural and artificial, century. How to reconcile elements both timeless

and dated,

in the

to disparate material. its will.

exactly

How

How

same frame.

How

to give

homogeneity

bend to who knows

to struggle against the sun, or

to interpret the desires of a director

what he does not want but

can’t explain

what he does

want. I would find this book instructive, I didn’t know that of work; would be moved by it. It is not simply the description Nestor Almendros is conscious of it is the story of a vocation. I

knew

I

He loves the practicing an art even as he exercises a profession. proves to cinema religiously; he obliges us to share his faith, and us that

we can speak of light with words.

—Francois Truffaut

Translated by David Rieff

SOME THOUGHTS

ON MY PROFESSION

1 i

i

P

eople outside the film world have often asked me:

director of photography?

The answer

is:

What

What

is

a

does he do?

almost everything and hardly anything. His

much from one film to another that it is hard exactly. My work may be simply to press the button on

function differs so to define

it

the camera, and sometimes not even that. There are films the camera operator actually handles the camera while

nearby I

am

in a folding chair

my name

on the back. In

there to supervise the image, give advice, and

name on

.

.

.

I

sit

this case

have

my

huge superone hardly knows who

the credits. In the extreme case of the

productions, with is

with

where

all their

special effects,

responsible for the photography, for

it

ends up absorbing every-

thing and everybody. In a low-budget movie, however, a director

photography collaborating with a director who is inexperienced or just beginning can not only choose the lens but decide on the of

framing of the shots, the movements of the camera, the chore-

ography of the actors in relation to the shot, and, of course, the the visual atmosphere of each scene. I even get inlighting volved in the choice of the colors, materials, and shapes of the sets

—

Man with

A

4

and wardrobe. And whenever

I

ean,

operate the camera

like to

I

Camera

a

myself.

The

director of photography

must always intervene when the

knowledge does not allow him to express his artistic desires in material and practical terms. He must remind him of the laws of optics when they are being disregarded. But help the first and foremost, he must never forget he is there to director’s technical

having his

own

may

pride himself on

impose

He must do his many of the direc-

the cinematographer

Though

director.

style,

he mustn’t

try to

best to understand the director’s style, see as tor’s films as

possible

(

if

the director’s “manner.”

People have asked

there are any ) It is

,

it.

and immerse himself

not “our” film but

me why

I

my

gave up

his

in

film.

ambition to be a

and devoted myself entirely to photography. the beginning I was trying to pursue both careers

director so early on

Actually, at

simultaneously.

—

directing

One unexpectedly

— stood

still.

So

let’s

took off like a rocket; the other say

life

decided for me;

I

am

have the best position on the crew. I have no intention of changing. I am the first to “see” the film through the viewfinder. If the film is a failure, the cinematographer is rarely

convinced

blamed;

I

if it is

a success, on the other hand, his

gets praised. Another advantage

is

work invariably

that one gets

many

oppor-

being able to change from crew to crew, from director, makes for a varied, adventurous life.

tunities to travel;

director to

Though

it

is

generally the director

who

suggests each shot,

an idea over with him

I

and develop it, sometimes suggesting my own modifications; for example, what lens to use, or how much to move the camera toward or away always

like to talk

from an

actor.

ideas,

even

Some

of

I

like to discuss the scene, to

first

propose photogenic

Of course, all this depends on the director. want any dialogue with their collaborators.

for the set.

them don’t

Throughout

mv

career

I

have noticed that the most arrogant

directors are not necessarily the best.

When we were di

Cinematografía

very young students in the Centro Sperimentale in

Rome, some

of us

made

a practice of verbally

Some Thoughts on Mi/

Profession

5

down almost everything our predecessors had done. Naturally we despised the “glamorous” photography of Hollywood films; also, we inveighed against neorealism, then in its death throes (1956). We couldn’t understand how a supposedly radical tearing

change

in

theme, intentions, and directing could

fail to

produce

a corresponding renovation of photographic techni(|ues. Since

mo\ement was attempting a “new” realism, we were especiallv irritated bv its use of lighting, which depended on the this

arbitrarv, pseudo-aesthetic interplay of light

Among

and shade.

was the only director of photographv whom we admired. His style seemed completely new, and he differed from ev^ervone else. Aldo began as a still photographer, \dsconti first used him as a photographer for his theatrical spectaculars, and then brought him in on La terra trema. The normal way to become a director of photography at that time and todav, for that matter was to begin by cleaning and loading cameras, mo\ang on to the job of focus puller. Then, after several years as camera operator, one finally got to do the lighting. Probablv because he was never anyone’s assistant, so that he had no one to imitate and had to invent his own methods, Aldo’s lighting was never conventional. His work was a source of inspiration for us all. Other neorealistic Italian films of the same the neorealists, G. R. Aldo

—

—

period, like

Open

City or Shoeshine,

photographv, also had a crude, their

cinematographers had

customed

to

working

had

to

manage

other directors of

realistic texture,

this in

but not because

mind. These

men were

ac-

and suddenly, because of the and De Sica made them shoot in

in studios,

postwar shortages, Rossellini natural settings.

made by

With no

access to the usual technical aids, they

as best they could.

I

am

sure that

if

they had been

given a bigger budget and more technical support, they would

have done something more “professional.” However,

in

Aldo’s

case, his realistic style originated in a totally different conception.

La terra trema, Umberto D (De Sica), Cielo sulla palude (Heaven over the Marshes) (Genina), and Senso (Visconti) are all

completely modern. Aldo’s

last film,

Senso (he died suddenly

A

6

Man with

during the shooting), was his concerned,

this film

first in

Camera

a

image

color. Insofar as

is

marks the origin of contemporary cinema.

But Aide's influence was not immediately

felt,

although

in Italy

Rotunno and Di Venanzo can be considered his earliest followers. Throughout the world, however, the fashionable directors of photography were

still

wedded

to conventional,

academic tech-

By the late fifties, this style had reached a saturation The younger generation wanted to break with everything

niques. point.

and

start over.

And when thought.

our time arrived, this

The New Wave marked

is

or so

we

of change.

In

what happened,

moment

the

France, Raoul Coutard in particular began systematically using the

new methods

of lighting

by

reflection. Until then, filming

had

generally been done in studios, on sets constructed without ceil-

The luminous beams

ings.

actors

and

sets

New Wave

of the lights

were projected onto the

from catwalks that ran along the

walls.

When

the

adopted the basic principle of Italian neorealism,

which was shooting

in natural sets

(sets

with ceiling), lighting

techniques necessarily had to be modified. These were low-budget films but there

with natural

were aesthetic reasons behind the decision

The

to

work

was reversed. Instead of shining from the catwalks down onto the actors, the beams of the lights, which were placed out of the camera's angle of vision, sets.

position of the lights

shone the other way, that

is,

toward the

ceiling,

so the light

reached the actors on the rebound, indirectly, and was therefore diffuse, with no pronounced shadows. Instead of making things look as

and

if

they had been outlined,

softly, as in

At

first

filigree

it

flooded everything evenly

an aquarium.

sight this looked like an antiaesthetic parti pris. All that

work, those laborious lights and shadows of earlier movies,

seemed to have fallen by the wayside. At the same time, color film became the norm, replacing black and white. People thought that even with “flat” lighting, colors alone

shapes and create the impression of

was

that the actors could

move

relief.

were enough

And

to separate

another advantage

as they wished.

With the

earlier

Some Thoughts on method thev had

My Profession

liad to

their faces looked

keep

7

to specific spots

and positions where

most suggestive, depending upon the greater or

lesser brightness of

each area.

Since reflected light casts no pronounced shadows, the

man

boom

could place his microphone more easily, without casting

its

indiscreet shape on the set. Last but not least, this kind of lighting

needed fewer work hours, fewer technicians and

electricians,

and

fewer salaries for producers to pay. All these changes gave the impression of a total revolution; at the same time, more sensitive negatives needing less light and smaller,

more portable cameras

had appeared. But it soon became clear that the adoption of simpler, more economical methods increased productivity but not qualitv. From the point of view of the image, we had moved from an aesthetic with shadows to an aesthetic without them. As

work process was After the first two

simplified,

the

prises

Demy

or

three

it

became

years

of

accessible to anyone.

experiments

and

sur-

(1959-61, the early films of Godard, Truffaut, Resnais, there were a half .), for every creator of real talent .

.

dozen pretentious upstarts without any originality. That shadowless light always shining down from a strange sky (the ceiling), by day or by night, had eventually destroyed visual atmosphere

We

had moved from old conventions to new ones, but unfortunately these new conventions were oversimplified, impoverished. The films of the so-called young cinema ended

modern cinema.

in

up

all

looking alike.

What began

as a healthy reaction against a

photographic mannerism, a nonconformist attitude to traditional cinema, soon created its own breed of conformers who

certain

were even more uniform and monotonous. The result was that a decade later the aesthetic level of film photography was probably lower than

it

had been.

The present trend seems Those direct

lights of the

now in color we kept the

film.

directing

it

From

to synthesize the old

and the new.

black-and-white days are unbearable

the early experiments of the

New Wave

use of indirect or diffuse lighting, but instead of only from the ceiling, we direct it from the sides, the

A

8

windows

Man with

a

Camera

or the lamps, from the real sources of light within a

given setting.

One must

try to discover a different

and

original

each film and even for each sequence, to obtain variety, wealth, and texture in one’s use of lighting while

atmosphere

visual

still

for

taking advantage of

modern techniques.

Until quite recently the director of photography ruled the set like a tvrant.

He devoted

many

so

hours to setting up the lighting

was no time left for the actors to rehearse or for the to direct. European cinema took this kind of complicated

that there directors

lighting to extremes. Ja Niât.

ness

One has

only to think of Carné’s Les Portes de

American cinema was able

to

maintain a certain natural-

except in some tvpes of film that

(

demanded

stylization, of

The French films that came out just after the war, before the New Wave, were unbearable with their laborious interweaving of lights. The actors could barely move. The light hit them course).

right

between the

faces, their bodies

them move and

eyes,

an

“artistic”

gloom hid the

were illuminated separately,

act like robots.

The

all

of

rest of their

which made

lighting didn’t exist for the

actors; the actors existed for the lighting. Therefore,

surprising that the reaction

began

in

it

is

not

Europe with the innovations Wave. Caught unawares for

and the New once, American cinema was slow to assimilate the new photography. Nevertheless, it made a rapid recovery and caught up with, then outstripped, its European counterpart. For example, it has

of Italian neorealism

been astonishingly quick

in

adapting and even developing light-

new cinematographers Michael Chapman (Taxi

weight filming equipment. Some of the I

admire are Gordon Willis (Interiors),

(Bound for Glory), Conrad Hall (Fat Vilmos Zsigmond (T/iC Deer Hunter). It is also interesting

Driver), Haskell Wexler City), to see

how American cinema

has gotten around union restrictions,

and has imported certain talented Europeans, Sven Nykvist (Pretty Baby) and the

like

the

Swede

Italians Vittorio Storaro

(Apocalypse Noiv) and Giuseppe Rotunno (All That Jazz).

More and more I tend what usually happens in

to use

nature.

onlv one light source, which I

is

reject the typical lighting of

Some Thoughts on the forties and

My Profession

9

which consisted of a main or “key” light, supplemented by a “fill” light, with another light behind to show off the stars’ hairdos and make them stand out against the backfifties,

ground, yet another for the backgioiind the wardrobe, and so on ad infinitum.

do with

reality,

where

window

a

or

itself,

The

another to show

had nothing a lamp, or at most both result

them, normally provide the only sources of imagination,

I

space around

it

Once

I

to

of

lack

me

an

the key light has been decided, the

and the areas that might be

left in total

are reinforced with a \erv soft gentle light, until

duced on

Since

light.

seek inspiration in nature, which offers

infinite variety of forms.

off

what

darkness repro-

is

what the eye would really see. I don’t always use a backlight, which is the light that used to be placed behind the actors to set off their hair. Or rather, I use it

only

and

film

when

close to

In interiors

in real life. to

use Fresnel lights only very rarely

justified. I

it is

for special effects,

light.

way

is

my

When

when

main

sunlight

reproduce

it

is

I

light

with arc

it

comes

to lighting,

one of

beautiful, that functional light

sure that I

my

light

is

and

is,

decide

how

The rest is easy. From the days

is

is

no sun, the best

H.M.I.s, or minibrutes,

is

my

basic principles

believe that

what

beautiful light.

I

is

is

that

functional

try to

make

my

it

when

necessary. In a studio

shining from a certain point outside,

the light

of

I

reinforcing

imagine that the sun I

usually

logical rather than aesthetic. In a natural set

use what light there

set I

lights,

is

it

real thing.

the light sources must be justified. is

precise, sharp

often very soft, as

is

needed and there

is

though nothing can replace the

When

need an extremely

first

would come through the windows. feature film.

La

Collectionneuse,

I

They arrange things so that they use huge quantities of light (which means electricity). Even when it is unnecessary, they love to make themselves more important, to justify their salaries, whereas there is really little technique to know. To make their work seem more diflBcult than it actually is, they turn up with their famous briefrealized that most technicians

lie

or exaggerate.

Man with

A

10 cases

of

full

meters,

when

but what

army

though

(

sometimes due individualistic folklore of I

and sophisticated light not what is inside the camera

is

Then they surround themselves with an and grips that makes them look like sea

in front of

is

it.

crew

true that the presence of this large

it is

No doubt because

union regulations).

to

Camera

diffusers,

the important thing

of electricians

captains

gauzes,

filters,

a

temperament

my

to avoid the

have always tried

I

of

is

my profession.

think of cinema as a generous art form. Through the lens,

something

like

an automatic transfiguration

is

produced on the

photographic emulsion. Everything seems more interesting on film than in

The

engraving. of design result

The process

life.

on

with a

tool,

usually interesting.

is

somewhat

similar to the art of

some sort inks it, prints it on paper, and the The same design done directly on

a piece of wood, inscribes

artist takes

it

is

paper would have no value at

all.

Somehow

enhances the work. In the same way, there cinema; the camera heightens

the reproduction

why

may

made bv people whom

find unpleasant or

contrary to

my

own.

It is

explain

possible to

in

Films are sometimes su-

reality.

perior to their makers. This I

magic

a sort of

is

sit

at times

I

like films

whose ideas are through a film made by

someone who personallv doesn’t deserve five minutes of one’s time. With a modicum of knowledge of composition and narrative, anvone can

film

something aeceptable. This

art forms. In the case of

grateful

einema, the

medium

seem

Everything tends

to

especially obvious

when

In

not true of other

eertainly helps;

it is

a

medium.

In fact, one of the dangers of cinema

make

is

prettier

is

precisely

through the

films dealing

lens.

its

ease.

This

is

with poverty or ugliness

those things look lovely.

my

opinion, the

main

qualities a director of

photography

needs are plastic sensitivity and a solid cultural background. So-called cinématographie technique tance,

and depends above

all

is

on one’s

tographers take refuge in technique.

only of secondary imporassistants.

Once

a

Many

few basic

cinema-

rules

have

— Some

ThougJits on

been learned, the job

My Profession

is

11

not very complicated, especially with an

assistant to take care of focusing,

measuring distances, and looking after the mechanics of the camera. I

make

ing at

all

first

my

decisions about lighting

about footcandles and

eye, without bother-

the other calculations.

I

size

contrasts directly, using the exposure meter only at the last

lip

minute

to decide if

good when

it is

At light.

first I

printed on

or aiming

85

I

it

light

will

be equally

me

exteriors,

have been using the old taking a reading on the palm I

directly at the scene to

global

a

when

I

without considering

reading, as

am

I

be photographed.

have explained.

using today’s

usually give the emulsion a rating of 80

filter.

my

it

do that myself, by eye,

For daylight 5247,

few years

for reflected light,

This system gives I

at first sight,

film.

for the past

\\>ston Master

contrasts.

stop. Today’s emulsions are so true

used Norwood light meters, which measure incidental

However,

my hand

on the lens

something looks good

to life that

of

all

by

Mlien

I

am

shooting with

ASA and

tungsten

artificial

meter on 125 ASA, without a

Kodak emulsion light, I set

of course.

filter,

use an

When

I

want to increase the sensitivity of the negative, I set the meter at 200 ASA, which gives me an extra stop when I have the negative pushed, or forced,

in the laboratory.

Nowadays

this

manipulation

done perfectly, with no visible increase in the grain. However, in some of my latest films Kramer vs. Kramer, The Blue Lagoon I have rarely pushed the negative, no doubt because of my new classicist scruples. Both Fuji and of the negative can be

—

Kodak (5294) recently have created even rated Kodak at 400 ASA in Sophie's Choiee. Contrary to popular

belief,

it

is

my

complex the movie, the more one needs oneself.

faster emulsions.

opinion that the more to

Whenever complicated movements

be

of

at the viewfinder

camera or scene are

required, every slight displacement produces a it

is

virtually impossible

to

operator what composition

is

be constantly

new

frame, and

telling

the camera

who

believe that

needed. People

lighting should be separate from

I

camera operating claim that

if

A

12

Man with

these two functions are caiTied out

Camera

a

by the same person

longer to prepare the shots. Producers as well as

many

it

takes

technicians

(They are not really concerned with aesthetics; they merely want to increase productivity.) I think the issue is debatable. Time can be lost explaining in detail to the camera operator just what he has to do and lining up the shot beforehand; the director has to deal with two people instead of

recommend

this duality.

and confusions that inevitably

one, with the complications

But

I

think the most important thing

is

result.

that the balance of

frame can be evaluated perfectly only when the director of photography is constantly looking through the viewfinder while the shot is being prepared and rehearsed. The image

lights in the

seen through the viewfinder

is

what

is

going to be seen on the

The cameraman is not bothered by what is going on around him (microphones, lights, technical crew), sometimes on

screen.

the verv edge of the frame but outside the field of vision of the lens. I

need the frame with

there

was

is

no

its

four sides.

artistic transposition

without

I

need

its limits.

limits. I

In art,

think the frame

a great discovery (long before cinema, naturally).

(During

men of Lascaux and Altamira did not frame And what counts in two-dimensional art is not

the Stone Age, the their paintings.)

only what

is

seen but what

is

not seen, what does not

let itself

be seen. Eisenstein hit upon a brilliant explanation of why we Westerners need the frame. We see our landscapes through windows, whereas the Japanese, who are used to architecture with sliding walls and no windows, did their painting on that could

scrolls

be unrolled and had only two edges.

In the cinema, the spectator can concentrate on the essential

when everything marginal nated.

I

am

like “total

or tangential to the

is

is

elimi-

therefore aesthetically opposed to certain experiments

cinema”

in a

dome. Though people think a cinematog-

rapher has to take care of lighting

frame

theme

just as important.

first

By means

and foremost,

I

believe the

of the camera’s viewfinder,

the outside world goes through a process of selection

and organiza-

My Profession

Some Thoughts on tioii.

13

Things become pertinent; thanks

frame, they take shape

We know

at

in relation to vertical

once what

scope, the frame

is

to the

is

good and what

an analyzing

is

parameters of the

and horizontal

limits.

had. Like the micro-

tool.

The word “frame” immediately suggests another term, “composition. To the layman the word sounds mysterions, and its rules whereas

difficult,

in fact to a greater or lesser extent

possesses an innate sense of composition. tive characteristics of the

a feeling for rhythm.

human

It is

everyone

one of the

distinc-

being, like the gift of speech or

The capacity

for

fined simply as a sense of arrangement.

composition could be de-

A

secretary

who

organizes

objects on a desktop (pencils, papers, a telephone), a housewife

who harmonizes

the arrangement of furniture, carpets, curtains,

are both displaying a sense of spatial composition.

Achie\'ing good composition within a cinematographic frame after

all,

that the

a matter of organizing the different visual elements so

whole

is

intelligible, useful

therefore pleasing to look

photography’s

skill is

at.

within the narrative, and

In the art of cinema, the director of

measured by

his capacity to

clear, to “clean it,” as Truffaut says, it

is,

a person or an object, in relation

keep an image

by separating each shape, be to a background or a set; in

other words, by his ability to organize a scene visually in front of the lens and a\ oid confusion

by emphasizing the various elements

that are of interest.

Of

course, the so-called natural laws of composition

covered long before the days of

There are many

bas-reliefs

film, as the art of

were

dis-

antiquity proves.

on the rectangular metopes

in

the

Parthenon which are perfect compositions. But leaving aside the examples from Ancient Greece, we can still find an extraordinary sense of composition in the visual creations of primitive man. In

The Valley, which I filmed for Barbet Schroeder among the Hagen tribes of New Guinea in the South Pacific, we were able to document this innate gift with scenes where these jungle dwellers paint their faces and bodies. Their technique adheres to rules of

strict

symmetry, with refined contrasts of colors and shapes.

— Man with

A

^4 Children’s artwork

another example.

is

If

a

Camera

children are given paper

and crayons, they will start drawing at once. What do they produce? M’ithout realizing it, a child will begin from the principle of horror vacui, dread of the void; if part of the paper is left blank, the child immediately the sun,

if

From

the scene

is

fills it

with another element

a landscape

the Renaissance onward,

—

know them and then

think about

them

all

for example,

to restore the equilibrium.

many

long treatises have been

A

cinematographer should

written on the rules of composition. first

—

forget them, or at least not consciously

the time, for

if

he does, he

risks eliminating

naturalness from his cinematographic narrative. Here

all

just

remind

my

I

will

we

un-

readers of a few simple, classic principles:

Horizontal lines suggest repose, peace, serenity. Perhaps

consciously applied this idea in the opening scenes of the vast wheatfields in Daijs of Heaven; vertical lines denote strength, authority, dignity, as in the

tall,

three-storied mansion, alone in

same film. Diagonal lines crossing the frame evoke action, movement, the power to overcome obstacles. This is why in the cinema many battle scenes or violent encounters are set on sloping ground as ascending or descending compositions, with cannons or swords at 45-degree angles. The forked flames of the fire that destroyed the wheatfields in Days of the middle of the prairie in the

—

—

hope a subtle one of this principle. Curved lines transmit ideas of fluidity and sensuality. Curved compositions that move circularly communicate feelings

Heaven were our

application

of exaltation, euphoria,

and

most of the ride equipment that so

many

joy.

in

folk dances are

I

This principle

fun

done

fairs.

And

is

it is

noticeable in

no coincidence

in circles.

Slavko Vorkapich talks about the effect of the moving camera tracking

—on dynamic compositions.

and enters a scene,

it

If

the camera

moves forward

creates the impression of bringing the

audience into the heart of the narrative, and therefore making participate intimately in the story that

is

being

told.

The opposite

movement, when the camera withdraws from the scene, used as a

way

of ending a film.

it

is

often

Some Thoughts on

My Profession

T5

cinema production of any value must be visually even for a person who comes in halfway through the

Basically, a interesting,

screening;

it

must be

missed the beginning of the

cinema

story.

on

detail in the chapters

My

am

I

black and white or in color.

in

even

visuallv exciting

I

someone who has

for

eclectic in that

like

I

will return to this in

more

Night at MaiuVs, The Wild Child,

and Confidentially Yours, but

now

admit

I

that

I

like

black and

white, especially in old films. However, such recent attempts as

Woodv

Manhattan have

Allen’s

nowadavs the and-white

laboratories have forgotten

They

film.

directors

and

gi'ays

to

develop black-

and variety

once had. Then again, today

photography don’t know anvmore how

of

properlv for black and white.

We

how

to bring out the richness

fail

that the blacks, whites,

me. For one thing,

less interest for

It is

to

light

a lost art.

learn about eras before the twentieth century through

painting, that

is,

through

colors.

We know

the

third of this

first

centurv through black-and-white cinema more than anything I

we

admit

I

have a conditioned

photographv,

I

else.

As a spectator or director of

reflex.

“see” periods before our

own

in color.

However,

in

the case of a film that reconstructs the decades of the twenties, thirties, or forties, I feel that color

an anachronism: Bonnie and

is

my own work

Clyde (Penn), Lacomhe Lucien (Malle), and

The Last Métro (Truffaut) Generally, though,

formation,

it

I

see, interpret,

are good examples.

more

in-

I

am

nearsighted, and color helps

me

“read” an image. As

and-white cinematography ended practical possibilities.

The image

prefer color.

reveals more.

in

it

reached

carries

its

apogee, blaek-

and exhausted In color photography there is still room its

cycle

its

for

experimentation.

Nowadays people perfection. This it

is

The 8

is

think that color has reached

true of the ease with

which

it

its

ultimate

can be used, but

not true of faithfulness of reproduction and chromaticism. fact

ASA

is

that the old Technicolor

—was an

—which apparently had only

excellent process, faithful to reality

more durable than what

exists today.

We remember

it

and much as a

system

Man with

A

i6

a

Camera

of overbriglit, shrill colors because the art direction, sets,

and

wardrobes were

was

When

defective.

all

exaggerated on purpose, not because

the

experiments

first

in

it

Technicolor began, the

demanding color and producers had to please them. In Becky Sharp (Rouben Mamoulian, 1935), which I had the good luck to see in a flawless copy at the Milan cinémathè(|ue, characters appear in the same shot dressed in different colors, red, green, pink, violet. Those early attempts at color film were republic was

markably charming.

The

industry

film

is

said

would contest sound was added and the

progress.

really

I

have made great technological

to

this claim. first

From

the 1930s on,

when

color films appeared, progress has

been minimal. One has only

to think of the

degree of per-

by John Ford in Drums Along the Mohawk 1939) and by David O. Selznick, who produced the much better known Gone With the Wind (1939). The mechanism of cameras has not undergone any fundamental change in the last forty years. The most notable developments are that they have become smaller, lighter, and therefore more transportable, and now have fection achieved (

gadgets

like

the reflex system, which eliminates parallax and

allows direct focusing through

become more

sensitive,

the lens.

Raw

stock film has

the lens can register images at lower

light readings, but ultimately all these

advances only mean that

equipment has become simpler and cheaper and is now available to all countries and budgets. There has been a generalization of what once was the Ilollvwood exception. Onlv the new

film

ultraluminous lenses and ultrasensitive film have contributed to a significant progress

from the point of \iew of aesthetics.

Wide-aperture lenses and emulsions able

to

capture extremes of

have only recently appeared on the market. This has indeed been a revolution, one that is still happening and has much further light

to go. I like to

compare

this revolution in

cinematography with

the revolution of the Impressionists in painting.

With the inven-

Some Thoughts on

My Profession

17

tion of tubes of oil paint, the artist could leave his studio carrying

only a case of these tubes, go anywhere

example,

like

Monet

—and capture

— Rouen’s

fleeting

cathedral, for

moments

on

of light

the cathedral façade on different canvases. Earlier painters had

been obliged

prepare and mix the colors themselves

to

who work

workshops. Nowadays, those of us capture instantly

difficult

in color film

and extreme moments of

light

in their

can also

even

at

low exposures. The method of pushing the negative has given color film the sensitivity of 200 ASA, and the new emulsions go further

still:

400 ASA. But

connection with Days of

I

am

I

know

vTrv fond of silent

I

will return to this

f leaven

films.

theme

later in

and Sophie's Choice.

The magic

of silence fascinates me.

these earlv films were in fact not totally silent. There

always piano or orchestra music

in the

background. Yet

I

was like

them as thev are now, without any music and in highly contrasted dupe negatives. They are a bit like the beautiful ruins of antiquity, like Greek statues of which only the torsos remain, with no arms or heads, and no polychromy. I am hypnotized by those characters who gesticulate and move their lips without uttering a sound; there is something oneiric and strange about them. I I

also love

say sound,

later on; is

I

I

sound I

in films.

Like color, sound adds realism.

When

exclude background music added to the mixing

mean

noises, dialogue.

a great help to the image, giving

Sound, especially direct sound, it

density and

relief.

Therefore,

always trv to work closely with the sound men. I generally don’t like images with out-of-focus backgrounds, the

merely graphic and aesthetic, and which are sometimes quite unreal, especially in color films with a commercial look ( T\^ spots ) But I also don’t think that the background and function of which

is

.

sets

should be too precise.

If there

is

too

much depth

of field, the

audience’s attention, which in the cinema should be centered

most of the time on the actors, is dispersed to the whole frame. but Therefore, I prefer backgrounds to be slightly out of focus

—

Man with

A

i8

Camera

a

only slightly. Of course, in the case of a shot that brings together several equally important characters,

depth of

field

becomes

indispensable because the spectator must be able to see different

same

levels of the action at the

There

is

time.

a fairly widespread notion that the close-up

one

is

of the specific elements of cinematographic art that distinguish it

from theater. But people forget that the theater

had

also

close-

ups. Theatergoers used to look through opera glasses to “create”

own

their

that

is

it

when they wanted to. The difference in film director who decides when thev are necessarv.

close-ups

the

is

y

I

perhaps because

like close-ups a great deal,

am

I

nearsighted.

take an equally eclectic position vis-à-vis the old polemic

I

introduced by André Bazin as to the superioritv of the unedited plan-séquence. For example,

admire continuous scenes, with no

no fakery, where the whole truth of a moment of interpreta-

cuts,

tion

I

is

presented to the audience just as

it is.

In this sense

am

I

a

George Cukor (Adanis Rib) and his school. But this does not prevent me from enjoying tremendouslv films that use editing. These have been our heritage from Griffith on, and such a legacy is not to be rejected. I love seeing a modern fanatical admirer of

film like

Wim

Wenders’s The American Friend, which goes back

to the editing that so

annoyed the

New Wave.

I

thoroughlv enjov

the mathematics, the geometry, the precision of the cutting that

we

see in silent films. But

I

appreciate

it

only

when

it

emanates

from pure inspiration and when an overriding sense of stvle unifies every shot. Like Truffaut or Malick, Wenders does not edit to

make later

filming easier, multiplying the angles in order to decide

on what can be done

be conceived

in a certain

this concept.

If

style.

In art

After

my

I

there

is

at the

Moviola. Ideally, each shot must

wav. The

film will derive

no concept

to

its

form from

begin with, there

no

is

believe in discipline.

recent experiences with American filmmaking,

state categorically that

American directors shoot

hundreds of thousands of

feet of negative.

I

far too

I

many

don’t think

necessary, at least not to such an exaggerated extent.

can

The

it

is

pro-

My Profession

Some Thoughts on are the ones

cliicers

that

raw stock

forget that tion, too.

comes

I

tliis

insist

is

cut, sMichronizcd,

there are

whom

manv

I

when

it

an enormous amount of film to be

and selected; the problem

options, there in that

a tendency to use

is

is

that

them

all.

most of the American directors

ha\e worked have known

meaningful shots and get if

procedure, since they reason

In each set shooting goes on forever. Then,

at,

look as

tliis

wastefulness bedevils the other stages of produc-

have been \erv lucky

with

on

the cheapest item in the budget. However, tliey

to the editing, there

looked

when

is

who

19

how

rid of the others.

to

choose only the

But some

thev cut without rhvme or reason,

film directors

just to

put

in

one

—

more take from \et another angle. Films made out of a superabundance of material tend to resemble each other, because they ha\ e all been shot according to the same methods. A computer could

make

this sort of film eijuallv well. It

which positions and angles

of the

could easily decide

camera are needed

to

cover

a certain scene.

The function

of the director of

photography

what has been

transmitter of progress or discoveries in

“cinematographic language” searched.

When

he was

is

just a

as depository or

neither well

known nor

called

well re-

beginner in 1941 Orson Welles

astonished the world with Citizen Kane, a film that was to revolutionize

cinematographic “writing.” At that time Welles was

twentv-five

vears

old

and had

little

experience,

Toland, his director of photography and a

man

but Gregg

of great dedica-

had just finished The Long Voyage Home and The Grapes of Wrath for John Ford. These films already had wide-angled shots, sets with ceilings, depth of field. If these two films are compared with Kane, it is not hard to see the influence on Welles of Ford via Toland. Through Stanlev Cortez, who had been his cinematogtion,

rapher on The Magnificent Amhersons, Welles another neophyte director, Charles Laughton of the Hunter.

At the time when the

reached their apogee “house” developed

its

(during the

own

style.

Of

l)ig

in turn influenced

in his film

The Night

production companies

thirties

and

forties),

each

course, the individual style

A

20

was

set

Man with

by the producers and the

on

directors

portance of cinematographers has received old Columbia comedies

Walker,

who was

owe

Camera

a

but the im-

staff,

little

their characteristic look to

Capra’s photographer but

who

The

attention.

also

Joseph

made

Penni/

Serenade for Ceorge Stevens, The Awful Truth for Leo McCarey, Theodora Goes Wild for Richard Boleslawsky, and II is Girl Friday for ffoward Hawks. All these films have curious

stvlistic

similarities despite the different personalities of their directors.

Greta Garbo

is

another representative case. All her films re-

semble one another, so that they form an amazingly unified body of work, even though she acted under different directors: Clarence

Brown (Anna Christie), Edmund Colliding (Grand Hotel), Rouben Mamoulian (Queen Christina), George Cukor (Camille). Garbo knew what she was doing: she alwavs asked for the same cinematographer

—W

illiam Daniels.

would even go so far as to compare two dissimilar films that I admire, both photographed by Rudolph Maté: The Passion of Joan of Arc by Dreyer and Gilda by Charles \ddor. ff thev are shown one after the other, and if the religious theme of the first and the Hollywood eroticism of the second are overlooked, it becomes clear that the lighting, frames, and camera movements I

are less different than might have been expected. like the

one of the gamblers

in

Some

sequences,

Gilda, have an exti'aordinary,

curious resemblance to those of the judgment seene in Dreyer’s

masterpiece. to

It is

younger and

very likely that

less

I

have unconsciouslv transmitted

experienced directors certain mannerisms and

from Rohmer and Truffaut, the two masters have most often worked.

figures of expression

with

whom

I

In recent years film criticism has devoted attention to

more space and the men who handle the camera. Perhaps this is due

to the current

tendency

to

recognize the specific responsibility

of each of the professionals taking part in shooting a film.

I

do

believe, however, that this trend started in the States, not Europe.

European experts veer toward the

cult of the director, the so-

called politicjue des auteurs or auteurs’ theory. In

my

case, for

Some Thoughts on example,

it

is

tlie

My Profession

English and American

mented more favorably on the

particularly

critics,

director of photographv. little

importance

most important

21

is

mv work

critics

and rewarded

do not

French,

The most

who have comEuropean

it.

mention the

iisnally

proof that in Europe

elo(|iient

given to the cinematographer

that in the

is

Cannes Film Festival

festivals like the

until very

recently there were no prizes for the image. Yet from the start the

Oscar has been awarded not onlv to the director but also to the j

who

other technicians

participate in a film.

national festi\ al to organize a

svmposinm

And

the

first

inter-

cinematographers

for

took place in Los Angeles.

The

interest our profession receives

are on the crest of the wave. There

cyclical.

is

was

a similar

now we moment during Right

the last days of the silent films (Sunrise by Charles Rosher and

Karl Struss). With the advent of sound, the image temporarily lost its

powers of

attraction, but

1940 and reached

new

it

had regained

its

importance by

heights of perfection and classicism

(

Gregg

Toland’s Grapes of Wrath and Citizen Kane). As color gradually

took over during the as

it

had with the

fifties

and

sixties, its

arrival of sound,

importance diminished,

but for other reasons; the old

cinematographers of black-and-white films Slowly in color

new is

If I

were

disoriented.

come along, and cinematography new heyday. Once again the names of the

generations have

entering a

directors of

were

photography stand out

to give

in the credits.

one piece of advice

to

people

who want

to

would suggest that, rather than going to a school, they take an 8 or a 16 mm camera and film anything and evervthing, making mistakes from which they can learn. I would also insist that they see a great many films. Directors get used to going to the cinema, but many members of

become

my

directors of photographv,

profession think thev can

trouble to see

I

make

what other people

films

without taking the

do. This has always astonished

me: how can one do something new without any idea

of

what has

A

22

been done before?

I

am

Man with

Camera

a

convinced that one learns most from

seeing the classics in film clubs and cinémathèques. lighting tions of

it is

also useful to visit art

famous paintings, and

To

learn

museums, examine reproduc-

in general to

develop an apprecia-

tion of the arts.

Having

my

said this,

I

must add

trade, not just one.

was tortuous, and written above

all

I

am

that there are

Each person offering

it

my

to learn

finds a different path.

Mine

only as an example. This book,

for students of film,

testimony. In every one of

many ways

films

I

problems requiring different solutions.

mainly one person’s

is

have come across different It

seems

to

me

that simply

describing what has actually worked or not worked in each case

might be useful or even generalizations.

significant;

I

shall

therefore

avoid

MY PREHISTORY

I

í

il

Spain

come from a Loyalist family, and my father had to go into exile when the Fascists won the Civil War in 1939; the rest of ns stayed provisionally in Spain. I was brought up in Barcelona. Even as a very young child I was often taken to the movies by my mother, I

my

uncle, or

my

grandfather. In those difficult days just after the

war, the movies were the only escape poor people had from the intellectual oppression of the

drug, a diet.

way

and American

out,

No wonder Frank

escapist cinema,

Franco regime. Cinema was

was the

like a

films were, of course, our staple

Capra’s Lost Horizon, the epitome of film that

most affected

me

in those days.

The movies provided a temporary refuge in a world away from the grim reality we had to live in. From

of fantasy,

that time,

have never attacked the so-called escapist cinema as some people do, because I think it helps many poor souls get through I

their lives, as

Thus,

my

it

helped

first

me

in those

precarious days.

contact with the cinema was as an ordinary

was obsessed by the movies and sat through everything that was shown. I would even take the tramway to Badalona, the next town, when a film was showing there that hadn’t yet

moviegoer.

I

reached Barcelona.

Man with

A

26

Then

now my

as

tastes

were

Camera

a

eclectic. Besides escapist

movies

I

more reflective films like Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Amhersons or John Ford’s The Informer.

be^an O

to

be interested

in

At that time Angel Znñiga’s reviews

in

Destino provided a point

was Zúñiga who opened my eyes to what cinema was. His book Una historia del cine influenced me greatly,

of reference. It really

and

I

In

knew

my

it

almost bv heart. y

opinion Zúñiga was one of the best film historians of

He was

day, in Spain or abroad.

his

superiority of

American cinema, and

the

first

the

realize

to

to invent a sort of politique

des auteurs, twenty-five vears before Cahiers du Cinéma. Later

on

I

gave

his

Una

historia del cine to several experts, all of

whom,

including Henri Langlois, director of the Paris Cinémathèque Française, agreed with me. In those days (1946-48) there in

Barcelona.

It

had screenings

cupola of the Coliseum.

I

was

was an

interesting film society

in the Astoria

in

my

for example, films like Fritz Lang’s

Cinema and

teens then,

and there

silent films

I

saw,

Die Niebelungen, Paul Leni’s

Waxtvorks, Murnau’s The Last Laugh and Tartuffe, made an enormous impression on me.

These

in the

played a determining role in

all

of

which

my development,

by 1946 they were alreadv past historv. I began to realize then that the cinema was something more than just entertainment, that it was an art form. Those sessions of the film society were ritualistic, almost religious; I looked forward to them every week with real emotion. Therefore, I might sav that this was mv entrv into the world of cinema, mv first moment of despite the fact that

awareness.

Cuba

My

father

those of us

had

settled in

who had

Cuba. As soon

as possible

stayed behind in Spain. In 1948

he sent I

for

embarked

Mt/ Prehistory for

Havana. At the

27 iiniversitv there

studied philosophy and

I

more to please inv family than myself, since the cinema was what interested me most. But there were no film societies in letters,

Havana, either,

as there

had Been

Barcelona, and no film magazines

in

with the exception of American fan magazines.

paradoxicallv, at that time

Cuba was

films. First,

unlike the Spanish, the

dubbing, so

all

the films were

Second, since

subtitles.

this

shown was a

films. I

got to see

all

yet,

a privileged place to see

Cubans knew nothing about in their original versions

free

brought

state controls, the distributors

And

with

market with almost no

in

many

different kinds of

the American productions there, even the

B

movies that had trouble getting to other countries. I also saw Mexican, Spanish, Argentine, French, and Italian films. Around

were imported each the Soviet Union, Germanv, Sweden, six

hundred

films

year, including

some from

etc.

In those davs, before the Batista dictatorship, the censors were

verv tolerant compared with Spain and even the United States. (After

all,

Havana, not Copenhagen, was the

first

city in the

show poniographic cinema openly.) The commercial theaters had old films like Dreyer’s Varnpijr on their double bills. Havana was paradise for a film buff, but a paradise with no

world

to

critical perspective.

know people of my own age who were as interested in the cinema as I: Germán Puig, Ricardo Vigón, Guillermo Gabrera Infante, Tomás Gutierrez Alea, and Garlos (Figueredo) Glarens among others. In 1948 we organized In

Cuba

Havana's

I

eventually got to

first

film society,

and

at

La Bête humaine, followed by

we found at the Puig, who had been films

16

its

opening

we showed

Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky,

local distributors. Later on, to Paris,

A nucleus

of people

other film societies later on, and first

to

be founded

the

who were beginning

interested in film formed around our club.

was the

through Germán

Henri Langlois began sending us

mm copies of the classics of silent film from

Française.

Renoir’s

in

We

Ginémathèque to

be seriously

paved the way

we can pride ourselves Guba and perhaps in

for

that ours all

Latin

Man with

A

28 America.

wanted

It

to

This was

was

make

logical,

after seeing so

Camera

a

many

movies, that

I

films myself.

difficult in

Cuba

at that time.

Apart from the news-

were only very commercial productions, which were of little merit and were geared to an unsophisticated public. This large audience kept many commercial theaters in business. But the atmosphere was totally unintellectual, despite the fact that, reels, there

was a good audience. The problem was that educated people went to foreign films, so that films in Spanish were directed almost exclusively toward illiterate viewers who couldn’t potentially,

read

it

subtitles. Therefore, the cultural level of

Cuban cinema was

very low. Looking back with greater perspective, I do not see this as an insuperable obstacle; perhaps it would hav^e been interesting to

make films for that public. The fact remains that we were not

film

companies and the

well received bv the small

media unions. It wasn’t easy to break into that closed territory. Between the last days of silent films sound some interesting Cuban films had y y been made, but by the late forties, the six or seven full-length films produced yearly in Cuba were only vulgar musicals or melodramas mostly coproduced with Mexican companies. Therefore, we had to concentrate our efforts on independent filmmaking. In 1949

we were

local

able to accpiire an 8

mm camera and we made

some amateur films with friends from the universitv. Cutierrez Alea and I shot Una confusion cotidiana (A Daily Confusion) in 8

mm,

a silent film based on a Kafka story about

look for but never find

when he a very

up of

— each other “A” goes

gets there “B” has just

gone

good way of learning how

a series of entrances

and

off to

two people who

to look for “B,”

meet

‘‘A,” etc. It

to edit, since the film

exits

and was

was made

from the frame, with parallel

action.

At that time we knew nothing about lighting. We used a photoflood lamp, which we merely shone directly onto the actors. But the film

was

interesting for

its

framing and editing; unfortunately,

Mt/ Prehistory tlie

a

29

only copy has been

name

lost. All

of us \yho collaborated on

made

it

By introducing Brecht, Vicente protagonists, beeame the most important

for ourselyes later on.

Reyuelta, one of the

theater director in Cuba. Julio Matas, character, also

became

Gutierrez Alea

is

who played

the other

and theater

a great aetor, writer,

director.

Cuba among the

the most distinguished film direetor in

was one of the few reasonable projeets many 8 mm and 16 mm films we left unfinished (for instanee. La boticaria [The Pharjnacist], adapted from Chekhoy and set in tsarist Russia). They were elearly beyond our capabilities, and today. This

now seem an 8

mm

a

little as if

we had wanted,

with no budget, to make

Gone With the Wind. Adoleseent

Instead of telling simple stories about the reality of a tropical island like

life

around

we were

Cuba,

us, the daily

grasping at a

world of Europe.

distant, pale reflection of the artistie

intellectually colonialized. Luckily

illusions of grandeur.

we

We

eyentually realized

it

were was a

fruitless struggle.

haye already mentioned the barrier that existed in the Cuban cinema between the old guard and the new, but eyen if they had welcomed us, we would haye been embarrassed to work with I

we were not interested in American films as though we belieyed ourselyes to be “anti-

them. In those days

models because, imperialists,”

we

still

realized that, at our lower leyel of industrial

deyelopment, vye could neyer make films the

On

did.

the other hand, the reeent appearance of neorealist Italian

films like

Open

They looked

City and Umberto

difficult.

opened new horizons

we

whieh we saw with astonishment

in

was happening

brought Batista

D

models we could imitate; perhaps

like

films like these, this

way Hollywood

in

the early

fifties.

in as dictator, things

for us.

could

make

Hayana. All

After the coup which

began

to get

eyen more

A

30

Man with

a

Camera

Rome: Studying at the Centro Sperimentale

First

Tomas

Gutierrez Alea and then Julio Garcia Espinosa went

Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografía in Rome. They returned with wonderful stories, probably to add shine to their off to the

diplomas. I

decided

College

attend the Institute of Film Techniques at City

to

New

York.

The

was Hans Richter, a filmmaker exiled by the Nazis and a great champion of experimental avant-garde cinema. But the school itself lacked resources, and those it had were amateurish 16 mm cameras, for instance. The courses were interesting, but gave us little chance to practice what we learned. in

director of studies

—

1956

I?

loo,

decided

to

go to

Italy.

I

was soon disappointed.

The Centro Sperimentale was the other side of the coin from New York s City College and, when all was said and done, inferior. The students made 35 mm films with sets built in professional film studios. The Centro had a lot of monev, much more than the Citv y

College Institute of Film, because

had been founded on a grand scale by Mussolini’s son and continued in the same style even after the dictator’s fall. But foreign students were onlv auditors; that is, in theory we were allowed only to listen. However, as all the Italian students were on significant scholarships and had to make

we

their thesis films for credit, Italian

it

could alwavs attach ourselves to an

who needed

help from a livelier foreign student. Since we had crossed the Atlantic to attend the classes, we foreigners were naturally

more

On my own,

enthusiastic.

through reading and amateur filmmaking a

I

had

mo s t

everything they taught us in the Centro Sperimentale, so the school held little interest for me. The onlv ^

ng was learning how

to light a scene.

Thev taught

My

Prehistory

31

us the commonplaces: in a gangster film the light “had to” create

sharp contrasts;

in a

mystery

it

“had to” shine from below

in

order

comedy everything “had to” be lit “high key.” They taught us the conventional wisdom that dictated, for example, that a light they called the controlucetto had alwavs to shine from behind the characters to make them “stand to cast

long shadows;

in a light

out” against the backgrounds. Film schools in general have not

changed, and are

still

teaching technical cliches.

In these circumstances Luciano Tovoli

—

—mv

best friend

''

amongO

Colombian Guillermo Angulo, the Argentine Manuel Fuig, and I rebelled. In this contrary frame of mind we decided that we were learning only ossified techniques. For the most part the teachers at the Centro were failed professionals who the Italians

the

had done nothing

\'aluable in film.

retired filmmakers

who had

Some

lost their

of the teachers

were old

One

professor

enthusiasm.

was assigned to each subject all year long, unlike the IDHEC in Paris, where courses are now taught by important people invited for brief stints.

In short, the school style of the

was

a disappointment.

Some

years later the

Centro changed with the arrival of Rossellini. But at

was there it was extremelv conservative. And neorealism was by then on its way out. All in all, my time at the Centro Sperimentale was perhaps useful. Eric Rohmer has the odd idea that bad schools can have a positive effect, because a bad the time

school

—

I

unjust, intolerant,

and makes students can produce good It

was

at the

and old-fashioned

—provokes

rebel, so that in the long

reactions

run bad teaching

results.

Centro Sperimentale that

things, to say “No!”

I

learned to question

and “Why?” Just because someone once

thought of solving a particular scene with a special tvpe of ing and did so successfully forever.

make

From

a film

I

shot? Suppose

is

this insight I

ask myself,

we

no reason

to respect his

light-

approach

developed a principle: every time

“How

is

this

did the opposite?”

I

kind of scene normally

Man with

A

32

a

Camera

Netv York: Formation

When

I

Italian

cinema

ended

mv as

it

studies in

Rome,

was closed

to foreign technicians.

I

couldn’t find

work

in the

But

didn’t

I

Cuba: Batista continued in power, and in Havana the same clicjue controlled the underdeveloped film industry and was still making the kinds of movies I despised. Returning to Franco’s Spain was also out of the question. My economic situation had become difficult. Then I heard of an open-

want

go back

to

to

ing for a Spanish instructor at Vassar College.

somewhat unexpectedly got the

job,

I

applied and

because they needed someone

could run the audio-visual equipment in the newly opened

who

language laboratorv.

And

so

returned to the States. After a while,

I

bought a Bolex i6 mm camera and once more began shooting amateur films on weekends. Around this time I made 58-59, about the last ten minutes before midwith

my

teacher’s savings

New Year’s Eve

night on at

in

I

New

York City.

Times Square and Forty-second

A huge crowd

gathers

Street to celebrate the

end of

the year. In the film, people wait around and the pace of the

editing increases until the hands of the clock reach 12.

everyone

is

overcome bv a

collective

madness; people

Then start

hugging and kissing each other, shouting, blowing whistles and trumpets, shaking noisemakers.

was my first complete words “The End.”

film,

It

I

with sound, credits, and the

think this eight-minute short was

matographic experiment

in

New

mv

only interesting cine-

York, though

I

also

made some

pretentious avant-garde short films that are not worth mentioning.

However, they did make

me

follow,

whereas 58-59 gave

that

was filmed

was

it

my

first

—

me

mere

was not the path

to

a real boost, in spite of the fact

and was easy to edit. It a small one, of coirrse and I was encour-

in a

success

realize that this

half hour

—

My

Prehistory

33

aged when the experimental film group in New York noticed it and praised it. Yet the film was like nothing we had been taught in the Italian film school,

The

nor in Richter’s courses

idea, like that of the English “Free

people unaware.

Cinema,

’’

New

in

was

York.

to catch

was spontaneous filmmaking, shot with a handheld camera and no tripod, using very sensitive negative film, the Kodak Tri X, which had recently appeared on the market. ^Mlen I could, I used the maiquees of movie theaters, where there

was a

Bolex

lens,

It

lot of light,

which had

rather like a studio.

a verv

used the Switar

I

wide aperture.

I

was

to film the technicpie, already well

known

called “a\ ailable light,” that

whatever

is,

just

the streets at night, with neon lights,

shop windows, and no additional

in fact

in still

f

1.4

applying

photography,

was in illuminated billboards and

light.

light there

So the passers-by some-

times appeared in silhouette, standing out against this luminous

background. In 1958, this kind of

But nowadays

it

is

work

common

in

the streets at night was unusual.

practice to leave backgrounds with

“burned-out” neon lights and characters almost

silhouette.

in

Many recent films have used this technique, from Midnight Cowboy to Taxi Driver. I myself returned to it for the night shots in the streets in

Women.

my in

I

My

Night

streets

Maud's and

in

The

Man Who Loved

have not been following the fashion, merely continuing

earlier experiment. It

New

at

York that

was

in this short film

made

years ago

discovered one could film at night in the

I

with no extra lighting.

Around

this

time

I

became

experimental filmmaker, an

who

a

good friend of Maya Deren, the

artist

totally

my

uncorrupted by com-

same New York group, which was swimming against the Hollywood current, I met Gideon Bachmann, George Fenin, and the Mekas brothers. They published the magazine Film Culture, for which I wrote my first articles. If I had decided to stay, I probably would have become one of the underground filmmakers of the New York mercialism,

school, given

my

greatly influenced

afifinity

career. In this

with that movement, then in

its

infancy.

A

34

But

Cuba, and tracted

happened

this

all

me

I

decided

in

to

Man with

a

Camera

1959, the year Castro

go back

to

triumphed

Havana. The revolution

in at-

irresistiblv.

Cuba: Revolution

I

made my

first

professional films in Castro’s Cuba. There

I

shot

about twenty documentaries. The revolutionary government had created the ICAIC, a department of cinematographic production.

was confused. The revolution had not as yet declared itself Communist, although in fact the people directing the ICAIC Espinosa, Alea, Alfredo Cuevara were all militant Marxists. Somehow I was taken on as cameraman and At

the political situation

first

—

—

director.

My

old friendship with Cutierrez Alea must have

the balance.

Still,

exiled twice, the

I

had a good

first

political dossier,

weighed

in

having been

time as anti-Franco, the second as anti-

my favor were

work of the old film societv, my studies in New York and Rome, and the Bolex camera I owned, since in the early davs the ICAIC’s technical resources were slim; the big nationalization projects were not yet underwav. I showed them my New York short 58-59, and it interested them. They probably saw it as something new. Also, since its onlv protagonist was a crowd in a single scene, it looked like a useful example of Batista. Also in

how

to film

short.

We

crowds

at rallies.

the

Gutierrez Alea used the idea for his

Asamblea genera!. began

to

produce

films

with political and educational

themes, a normal step for a country that had just undergone a revolution.

There were

films

about agrarian reform, the govern-

ment’s achievements and projects in the realms of hygiene, agriculture, little

in

and education. Havana.

I

We

did a lot of filming in the countryside,

worked mainly

as

cameraman with young

Mij Prehistory

85

made

directors wlio later

Fausto Canel

in

a

name

for tliemselves, for

example,

El tomate and Cooperativas agropecuarias, with

Manuel Octavio Gómez (who later made La primera carga al machete) in El agua. Working in the countryside and in places without electricity, we had to use our ingenuity to film inside the hilts of the Cuban peasants. We had no artificial lighting because it was expensive to take a crew of electricians with ns. We thought up the idea of using mirrors, capturing the sunlight from outside, reflecting

it

in

through the windows, and directing

the ceiling, from where

it

to

bounced and lit the whole place. Because the huts were rather dark and the walls dull-colored, we had to cover them with white paper to reflect as much light as possible. I should point out that around that time fashion photographers began using light reflected off white nmlirellas. I knew about these methods, though as yet they were not much used in filmmaking. Thev were techniques I perfected later on in France. I also directed some shorts, including Ritmo de Cid?a and Escuela rural. But ICAIC was already becoming bureaucratized and compartmentalized. Each film had to have a cameraman and a it

had shot my own films in New York, thev wouldn’t allow me to combine both functions, even for documentaries. The cameramen they assigned to me against my will director. Forgetting that

were constantly

telling

possible,” “This

is

nonsense,

it

I

me, “No,

this can’t

technically wrong.” As

me

drove

to despair.

It

be done,” “That’s imI

knew

made me

realize

extent technicians can frustrate a director’s ideas. that era,

nowadays

I

this

was all to what

Remembering

examine carefully the most harebrained

visual proposal a director makes, searching hard for a solution

before saying, “It can’t be done that way.” I

liked

working

for

ICAIC

at the

beginning, because overall

I

was then a supporter of the revolution. But as we were obliged to repeat the same triumphalist themes, I began to get tired of the demands and the inevitable submissions. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Cuban film industry was completely nationalized, and for all practical purposes was under the control of one man.

^

A

3^

Man with

a

Camera

Alfredo Guevara Valdés (no relation of Che) personally controlled production, distribution, theaters, the importation of

and even the one remaining

materials, laboratories,

Like Shumyatsky,

raw

film magazine.

famous minister of cinematog-

Stalin’s sadly

raphy, Guevara Valdes imposed his absolute will. Eventually realized that

I

but for a state

any

like

the

was not working for the people, as was claimed, monopoly, and that the current authorities acted

capitalistic producer, forcing us to

same way

I

humor them

in just

or worse, the only difference being their hypocritical

we were required to make The films we made had very

use of social pretexts. In other words,

propaganda

films

ad

infinitum.

To compensate, using my Bolex camera

limited interest for me.

and short ends of raw

began shooting a completely different kind of documentary on weekends at my own expense. I called it Gente en la playa (People at the Beach) and it had no plot. The film was more a study of people’s behavior, shot in

mm

i6

stock,

I

with a hand-held camera, which was hidden most of the

time. In

its

execution

it

was

like

my New

York

film 5S-59, except

was filmed in sunlight almost the whole time, on a public beach, and in the cafés nearby. There was no spoken commentary, only the actual sounds and typical Cuban jukebox music. that

I

it

used no extra lighting for the shadowed areas. Often people

were silhouetted against the dazzling sea. Inside the bars I used the light that was reflected from the beach. If someone was dancing, I didn’t care about the face, which could remain in the shade; what I wanted was the body against the light. I purposely worked with raw elements. I was challenging the

myth that an image can never be good without artificial light. I had realized that what counted was that there was enough light, and natural I

was not only sufficient but much more beautiful. sometimes worked with the lens wide open to f. 1.4. For example, light

the film begins in a

beach.

It s

children.

I

moving bus,

filled

with people going to the

an ordinary Cuban bus packed with men, women, and added no light. The windows were overexposed, some-

thing that as yet was not done.

I

wanted the

exterior to look

Gente en

la

playa, 1961

A

3^ “burned-out.” raphers, it

won’t say

I

I

Man with invented

who were always ahead

Camera

a

because

this,

photog-

still

were doing

of cinematographers,

already. y

But

it

produced a shock

ICAIC had

just

made

effect in

Cuba

at that

moment, because

Cuba

a full-length official film called

baila,

with a scene inside a bus so heavily illuminated that there was j

more

light inside

that they

was

was outspoken in those days, and said imitate Hollywood and that the lighting

than out.

were trying

to

I

began

they

Paradoxically,

false.

me

calling

a

counter-

revolutionary. Apparently those full-length films

were important,

whereas our shorts had been born with fewer

rights.

experiments they received very

ICAIC brought an shoot their absurd.

confidence in

attention.

I

said publicly that this

should the revolutionary government have so its

own people? Why were

By importing

as

old director of photography from Italy to

full-length films.

first

Why

little

Even

was little

they mentally so colonial-

show what we could do. But they said, “Your windows are overexposed, you don’t compensate.” It seems odd that the bureaucrats wanted to impose all the commonplaces of the old cinematography into revolutionary filmmaking. I make this statement here hoping that if anyone from a Third World country reads it, he or she will remember that it is counterproductive to repeat just what the ized?

talent in this

way, they didn’t

let

us

other, so-called developed countries are doing.

To my

surprise, while

I

was editing Gente en

authorities intervened to prevent

me

from finishing

la it.

plat/a,

The

the

editing

room was locked and two armed guards stationed outside the door. But luckily bureaucracies are also inefficient

and careless

in

methods of oppression. Months later they gave me back the kevs to the room because I had to edit an official documentarv for their

television.

\Mien

I

went

in I

was amazed

was still there, untouched. And work they had asked me to do, I en the

la

playa,

title to

to see that

my

negative

was completing the discreetly finished editing Gente and even synchronized the sound track. By changing Playa del pueblo (Beach of the People) and taking so,

while

I

My

Prehistory

39

managed to disguise it, and made a copy riglit under their noses in the ICAIC laboratory. Almost a year had passed. Ultimately, the film had been banned because it \yas not political, because it had been made at the acUantage of bureaucratic coufusioii,

I

fringe of official productions. All this

me

caused

to ask \yhat future

\yith increasing political sectarianism.

I

could expect

Wasn’t

haying unconditionally supported from the intolerant of independent

moyie

critic for

judgment?

I

in

Cuba

also guilty for

start

My last job

in

a regime

so

Ilayana was as

the (nationalized) weekly Bohemia.

ran into

I

trouble there, too. In one of

my

articles

entitled P.M., like

made

I

imprudently praised a short Cuban film

my own

Gente en

¡a

playa one of the

last to

be

outside ICAIC. This lovely and inoffensive short, directed

by two talented young men, Orlando Jiménez Leal and Sabá Cabrera, was blacklisted, and Fidel Castro himself attacked it in his famous speech “Palabras a los intelectuales” (“Words for the intellectuals”). At the same time the vacuum left in Havana’s mo\ ie theaters by the absence of American films was filled by an avalanche of films from the Soviet Union and its satellites. I was looked at askance for criticizing some of the Soviet films and defending the then new Czech and Polish cinema, which represented a relatively anti-Stalinist trend within the Iron Curtain. As usual, the Association of to

Cinematographic Critics met

at year

end

choose the ten best films of the year. First place had to go to the

Russian Ballad of a Soldier by Chukhrai; I voted for Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. Mine was the only dissenting voice. A short while

was fired from Bohemia. Little did I think then, in 1961, that a few years later I would be working with the French director whom I so admired! This has been one of the great surprises and

later

I

rewards of

my career.

Eventually

I

decided to leave Cuba because

thing worse would happen to nie

Guevara Valdés against me, making. A third exile seemed

all

if I

stayed.

I

realized some-

And

besides, with

doors were closed to

my only choice.

me

in film-

My Prehistory

41

France

I

didn’t

want

to

go back

avoid becoming involved

in the

then because

I

preferred to

world of the Cuban

exiles. First,

to the States

was onlv part-Cuban, and second, because I had also had enough of political exiles. Where, I wondered, could I do something? Where was I needed? In 1959, the first vear of the revolution, four or five New Wave French films had reached Havana, among them The Cousins, The 400 Blows, and Hiroshwm mon amour. Those films inspired me. I must point out that I had never felt much enthusiasm for French cinema before the New Wave. In the Havana film societv my position had been rather pro-American, whereas most Cuban movie buffs were nearer French cinema, which they considered more artistic. For example, I liked Frank Capra a thousand times more than René Clair. But this time I was indeed dazzled bv the French New Wave. The American cinema I had been so keen on before was still very far out of my reach, and it because

I

was then

in a

younger days

moment I

of crisis.

had run

off to

I

should also explain that

Hollywood

for a

in

my

few months,

almost insurmountable wall that

and perceived the surrounds American filmmaking.

In any case, French cinema

the only one in the world, apart

vv^orked as a dishwasher, as usually happens,

is

from the American, with a tradition spanning the entire history of film. France is undoubtedly the home of film, as Spain and

and Cermany of music and philosophy. Not only was the projection of moving pictures onto a screen invented in France, but France has never lacked important films. The same Italy are of painting

is

not true of cinema in other countries. Italy has had long, semi-

barren periods,

Germany

a very

short-lived

explosion called

Expressionism. Spain’s hour has not yet even arrived.

The members

of the

New Wave made

films that

spoke to

Varrwur en fuite, 1978. Nestor Almendros and François Truffaut are behind the camera

my

Man with

A

4^

Camera

a

had loved the old American cinema; in other words, what had inspired me had also inspired them. We had in common the cinémathèque heritage, the practice of film criticism, and the adoption of techniques that went preferences,

because they,

too,

counter to those then considered professional.

what they were doing had some connection with what had done in Cuba, and it occurred to me that French cinema that

I felt

I

might have a place

for

A

me.

crazy idea,

the fact that (only by chance)

it

I

now

worked. So

I

realize, in spite of

went

to Paris

and

survived for almost three years as a belated pseudo-student,

simply by registering at the universitv. This allowed

me

cheap room

gave private

in

the subsidized University Citv.

Spanish lessons to survive, did any kind of work

began

to

be afraid

I

would never make

I

I

could

to take a

find,

and

films again.

The only people I knew in the film world of Paris were Henri Langlois and Mary Meerson of the Cinémathèque, thanks to our old relationship through the Havana film societv. I took them a copy of Gente en la playa that I had smuggled out of Cuba, and a private showing was held in the offices on the rue de Courcelles. “This is cinéma vérité Mary Meerson declared. As I had never heard of cinéma vérité, it is clear that we had discovered it in Cuba, too it was in the air. Direct cinema, as it was later called, was being done in several countries at the same time. Mary Meerson at once telephoned Jean Rouch, who was an influential ,

—

member of this

school.

Luckily Rouch was not in Africa at that moment. ''

film,

chose

it

for a series at the

I

in

Florence, Italy.

I

film. I

mv ^

thought

showing of ethnographic

my moment had

returned to Paris after the festival thinking

working

liked

Musée de ITIomme, and had me

invited to the Festival dei Popoli, a

cinema

He

I

come, and

would soon be

cinema again. Nothing happened. No one offered me a survived, teaching Spanish again and getting myself invited in

to other film festivals.

With Gente en

playa

European cities, London, Oberhausen, Evreux, Barcelona. By knowing the dates la

I

visited

several

Ml/ Frehistonj

and the

committees of the iimnmerahle

orc[anizinii

and congresses about

43

all

at little or

film festivals

over the world, a person can live and

no expense

for long periods of time.

So

move prac-

I

what Jean Honch calls “international mendicity.” In this wav I was also invited to a conference organized by the ORTF (French TV) in Lvon on the new technicpies of direct cinema. At that time the prototype of the light, portable camera ticed a bit of

without a blimp appeared, the noiseless Eclair-Contant

mm, which

i6

was

also the

(ACL)

allowed hand-held filming with direct sound.

It

beginning of miniaturized portable sound ecjiiipment,

the Nagra, the Perfectone, etc. That conference was very rewarding for me, because

people from techniques

all

of

was able

I

o\er the world

who

exchange impressions with shared

my

interest in the

Pennebaker, and the

Leacock,

cinema.

direct

to

Mavsles brothers were there from the States, Roiich and Chris

Marker from France, Jntra and Michel Branlt from Canada, Mario Rnspoli from Italv. The ideas that took embryonic shape in Cuba in Gente en Ja plúi/a

developed and evoKed from that time on, especially

as a

had with Rouch, to whom I owe a great deal. I thought through and refined my ideas on lighting, framing, and sound in a positive way, whereas up to then my cinematographic thought had mainly consisted of confused intui-

result of the long conversations

tions

and reactions

to

I

established methods, a purely negative

posture. I I

had known what

I

didn’t like, but

I

had not known what

could do to oppose the old ways. For three years

with Rouch and Maysles,

who sometimes came

I

talked theory

to Paris.

These

had no film work. I now realize that while it was a sad, difficult, and depressing time, it turned out to be useful, because if I had started work immediately were the three years during which

I

.

.

.

what counts, of course, but at times it is beneficial to examine one’s ideas and one’s own and others’ films. There is always the risk that work will become routine. I therefore consider it a bit dangerous to start too young, or at least to become a

The work

is

Man with

A

44

a

Camera

money in cinema prematurely. During those saw many films, I talked a lot about filmmaking; I

professional, to earn

three years reflected,

I

though with some

bitterness, because, not seeing

French film world,

possibility of getting into the

I

thought

I

any

would

never hold a camera again.

And I

when I was disheartened and about to Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder. Paris vu par

give up,

in 1964,

met Eric

.

.

.

(

Paris

was the film that allowed me to enter and become known in French film circles. I had always figured that camerawork was the means to get to directing; I had never really thought seen bv

.

.

.

)

of a career as a director of photography. Since in Paris

forced to earn a living, and since present oneself as a technician,

man. Later on, the means

my

services as camera-

end became the end

to the

was

sounds more positive to

it

offered

I

I

itself,

and

became passionately committed to this profession. My meeting with Eric Rohmer was fortuitous. I was present at the shooting of Paris mi par almost by accident. The director of photography on Rohmer’s sketch quarreled with him and sudI

.

denly

left his post.

.

.

Barbet Schroeder, the producer, couldn’t find

a substitute on the spot.

Then

I

spoke up,

they had no alternative, they tried

me

—

am

out for

thev saw the rushes, thev liked what the film

“I

cameraman.” As that day only. When a

had done and

I

I

finished

a stroke of luck that happens only once in a lifetime.

Educational Television

Just as

I

was filming

Paris

vu par

documentaries for television: tional television.

wanting

to

We

began shooting some short Rohmer was then working for educa-

Knowing my

.

.

.

,

I

difficult

help me, he introduced

me

showed them Gente en la asked me to do something in the same

station.

financial

situation

and

to the executives of the

playa.

They

liked

it

and

style in a children’s play-

^[^J Frehistorif

ground. So

I

45

made

Jardin public

(Public Garden), which

directed and photographed with direct sound. Altogether

about twenty-five documentaries

I

I

made

for educational television be-

tween 1964 and 1967. I still like some of them. They were honest pieces not aimed at large audiences, educational documentaries

made

for particular reasons. The\-

were

also very useful.

able to experiment with camera technicjiies that

was

I

used later

I

in

feature films.

Cuba

In

I

had done documentarv reporting with rudimentary

equipment. With the Bolex the shots couldn’t be more than twenty-

two seconds, which was France I used an Eclair to reconstruct

ACL

Cuba

ran on batteries. In

had

as long as the spring lasted,

it;

in

16

mm

camera with

whereas

in

motor that

a

the sound was not synchronous and

France

I

I

discovered the wonders of direct

sound simultaneouslv recorded on the portable Nagra. These shorts efforts.

new

Since they were in black and white,

emulsions Double

X

and natural

In these films

I

I

also

light that

pushed

I

I

my

first

was able

400

ASA

serious

to use the

that

came on

developed the techniques of

had discovered

to the limits

usefulness of natural light. In

Day

ASA and 4X

250

the market at that time. flected

were

for educational television

my

intuitively in

re-

Cuba.

theories about the

La Journée d’un savant (A

Scientist’s

was a physics laboratory with oscilloscopes that gave off weak but interesting lights. If I had added illumination, my lights would have overpowered these others and the effect would have been lost. To obtain more luminosity I filmed at eight frames per second instead of twenty-four, and I asked the people )

there

involv^ed to

move

ment, which

is

slowly so as to regain the speed of

human move-

captured at twenty-four frames per second.

I

was

able to use this unorthodox technique successfully later on in several short sequences in

Days

of

Heaven.

same series La Journée de ... I filmed La Journée d’un médecin (A Doctor’s Day), La Journée d’une vendeuse (A Salesgirl’s Day). I also made La Gare, about the organization and life In this

of a railway station; seven shorts designed to teach

English,

Mtj Prehistory

47

London Town; a couple of documentaries on Greek archaeology, and another couple on the Middle Ages. All this was

Holiday

in

useful in that

practiced working freely, with light equipment,

T

making the most late

it

of the natural beauty of light

onto film as

it

is,

without

frills.

and trying

to trans-

Because of the variety of

was used, many problems arose and the experience of solving them was invaluable when I began to make feature films. For example, in the history programs on the Middle Ages and Classical Greece, I found out that Greek

themes and the amount of

art

film that

cannot be photographed with wide-angled lenses, which give

optical distortion, no doubt because of the Hellenic sense of pro-

portion and equilibrium.

On

the other hand, the distortions of

the wide-angled lenses not only suit but enhance Gothic

art, as if

the architects of the cathedrals had seen things from a wide-

angled perspective, inspired by their desire to

rise vertically to

heaven. In

En Corse

Ajaccio.

I

(In Corsica) there

was

St.

John’s great bonfire in

filmed the closing shots with the protagonists actually

illuminated by the flames and no

artificial light,

using lenses with

wide apertures and pushing the negative. I did the same thing vears later in Datfs of Heaven. In some of these films, as in those I had made in Cuba, I did not always achieve the effects I was looking for. Sometimes I was completely wrong. But it is important to make mistakes and have failures

when

they don’t weigh too heavily in a career. This

is

the

advantage of being able to commit errors with impunity in pieces of work that are virtuallv anonvmous. In short, it was in French w

*

educational television from 1965 to 1967 that called professionalism.

Days

of

Heaven, 1976

I

acquired what

is

«

1

î

1

;î

ii

1

I

i

PROFESSIONAL LIFE

i

À :

Paris vu par

•

•

•

Eric Rohmer, Jean Roueh, Jean Douehet, Jean-Lue Godard,

Claude Chabrol, Jean Daniel PoIlet—ig64

vu par

is

.

.

was made up

.

by a different cinematographer. Every sketch

of six sketches, each

New Wave director and a different

took place in a separate district of Paris, seen through different eyes. The film took quite a few months to shoot, because we

worked

in a rather

people were

free.

syncopated way, on weekends and whenever Barbet Schroeder inspired and produced

this

unusual project.

was a cooperative venture, so no one was paid. Since Schroeder and Rohmer were looking for a cameraman who wouldn’t charge, they couldn’t be too particular. Being virtually unknown and still lacking immigration papers or a legal work

The

film

permit, I

I

solved their problem marvelously.

finished Rohmer’s sketch. Place de VÉtoile,

Jean Douchet’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés. But I Godard, Chabrol, and Pollet. Once the shooting I

worked on the

shots

.

.

was shot

I

couldn’t put

in i6

my name

was

finished,

to

be done.

in the credits.

mm and then enlarged to 35 mm.

moment for cinéma vérité, and we thought procould be made in 16 mm. We wanted to carry the

This was the big fessional films

.

itself

and sequences that remained

For legal reasons, however, Paris vu par

and filmed all of also worked with

Man with

A

52

mm

techniques of the i6

become Coutant

documentary

new and

possible thanks to the

ACL

a

Camera

to fiction films. This

had

then revolutionary Eclair-

i6 camera, which was portable and almost com-

pletely noiseless.

was undoubtedly an interesting experiment, we ultimately became convinced that the technical results left much Although

to

it

be desired. The grain on the emulsion was

when

much more

notice-

was projected on big screens, an effect some people admired because it was different from the films being made at that time. But Paris vu par could have been just as spontaneous and

able

it

.

infinitely better

.

.

we had made

if

it

in

35

mm.

Only Jean Rouch’s sketch really exploited the possibilities of 16 mm and could not have been shot in 35. It consisted of just two uncut shots, filmed with a hand-held camera, which followed the actors from

room

and out onto the

to

room

street, all

in

an apartment, then

with direct sound.

Barbet Schroeder, the moving

admitted that 16 later did

we

spirit of

the project, eventually

mm was really an attitude, a state of mind. we had

realize

problem didn’t

in the elevator,

confused format with attitude. The

using 16 or 35

lie in

Only

mm,

but

in the

way we saw

things.

We

carried very

equipment, but

had we shot in 35 mm, the equipment would have been even less cumbersome, because at that time 35 mm emulsions were more sensitive and needed less light. In La Collectionneuse, which was shot in 35 mm, we worked with less electricity than we used in Paris vu par .... In those days 16

little

mm

emulsions had a 16

we had to falsify were defeating our own purpose: Consequently,

because supposedly

Even now rating

good

is

that 16

higher,

lens

it

it

mm is

In short,

we

ASA

the light if

we

—

sensitivity rating.

overilluminate.

preferred 16

mm,

it

We was

gave us greater naturalness and realism. emulsions have improved and their ASA still

necessary to overilluminate to get a

opening, which

images when enlarged

in fact,

is

indispensable to obtain sharp

to

35 later on. defended the impoverished cinema, 16

mm,

against

53

Professional Life

—

a bit like the fox in Aesop’s fable

he can’t reach aren’t that

it

was possible

ripe. Basically,

for ns to

find theoretical justifications.

“the enemy.”

I

says the grapes

we were making

make and

we

But

who

the films

trying after the fact to

soon defected and joined

eventnallv realized that once again

I

had fought

mm until the technique became more sophisticated. The look of i6 mm

for

is

an unworthy canse, and shortly after that

not so

much

of defectiye or to

iis

abandoned i6

the result of an intrinsically poorer format as

amateur projectors. This

blow i6 lip to 35 mm. Blit in any case, Paris vu par

perience for

I

all,

.

.

.

is

why

it

is

essential

was an extraordinary

a wonderful opportunity to expeiiment.

most important thing for me was that I had been able foot in the door of the French film world.

to get

ex-

The

my

La

Collectionneuse

Eric

Collectionneuse was

way my

favorite. In

short films. For tains in

it

me La

I

my

first

feature film and remains in a

developed ideas

Collectionneuse

its

is

I

had only outlined

in

like a manifesto. It con-

would do later on. It drew photography, which was somehow

embrvonic form everything

attention for the style of

Rohmer— iq66

I

from what had been seen before in color in the professional cinema. This was partly because we had insufficient resources. The film had to have a "natural” look, whether we different

wanted it to or not, because we had only five photoflood lamps. Rohmer, Barbet Schroeder, Alfred de Graaff, and I, improvising as electricians, placed the few lights we had, or filmed things just as they were. This was not merely a concession to the need to economize, because we all agreed it was better to work this way.

To

cut expenses further,

we

lived in the house in Saint-Tropez

where we were filming. For some time Rohmer had wanted to film the fourth of his series of Moral Tales, but had not been able to find a producer. Then a group of people including myself, led by Barbet Schroeder, decided to make the film as a cooperative venture.

A

lack of funds

Man with

A

56

forced us to juggle in such a

Usually

we would do

way

that

we

Camera

a

invented

only one take. For this to

new methods. work, Rohmer

rehearsed the actors over and over, until he was sure of them,

way we were

before saying “Shoot.” In this

of footage taken to film length at only 1.5:1.

who complain about

there are actors

A

record!

(

Of

course,

method. For example,

this

My Night at Maud's, Jean-Louis Trintignant

during the shooting of objected to so

able to keep the ratio

many

rehearsals.

out of his performance.

He

felt

it

took the spontaneitv

)

In the cross-cutting shots, instead of following the usual pro-

cedure of doing the whole take alternating

them

first

of one actor, then of the other,

in the editing process,

Rohmer

what was essential the person speaking or listening so that there was never any duplication in the editing, which was exactly what he had planned. We used only 15,000 feet of negative for La Collectionneuse. In the laboratories they thought they were the

—

shot only

—

rushes of a short. In this sense

Rohmer

is

like

Buñuel,

ceived each scene in only one way, having given

it

who

con-

a great deal of

thought beforehand.

we wanted discussion we opted At

first

because none of the captured

change

in 16.

their

to shoot the film in 16

for 35.

as

if it

we thought

mm

35

downplayed

color could

we

to 35, they usually

was possible were being done in 16 mm.

that conceiving of the film in 16 in 35. Effects are

much

think this was a lucky decision,

moviemakers change

methods, but

La Collectionneuse

but after

atmospheric nuances could have been

film’s

When

I

mm,

in

mm

it

to shoot I

believe

what paid off the lower format, and only in is

precisely

exploit the possibilities of the

negative. This film stock

had a higher

sensitivitv

Eastman rating, which

allowed us great freedom with our lighting and permitted us to cut down on our use of resources.

mm

thought the Eclair Cameflex, a portable 35 camera without a blimp, was not much heavier than a noiseless 16 mm, and if we were going to dub there was no reason to use the EclairI

Professional Life

Contant i6 nnn.

If

57

we

did onlv one take per shot, the latter

would he more expensive, because if we made the film in i6 mm we would have to enlarge it to 35 later on, which is also an expense.

Rohmer found the problem challenging: he that we didn’t have enough film. Rigorous prepara-

think

I

liked the idea

and minimizing the use of resources and energy appeal

tion

to

his ecological principles.

There

is

to use too

a great temptation for filmmakers with large budgets

much

thev have the means to do

liditino;, since

so.

A

work rapidly prevents the image from becom-

small budget compels the director of photography to

and

find simple solutions.

It

also

ing too mannered, which can happen

when people have

the time

dream up complicated schemes in a big production. In La Collectionneuse shooting was scheduled to take five weeks. For the exteriors, Rohmer had a practical idea which, like all such ideas, also became aesthetic: he wouldn’t let the actors stay in the sun while they were talking. In Rohmer’s films the characters speak at length, usually in the same spot, so if the film is shot in to

sunlight, a serious limitation light lasts

is

introduced: as the sun moves, the

changes sides during filming.

on the screen

is

ten minutes,

If

it is

has changed direction in so short a time.

the actual time a scene clearly a flaw

One

if

the sun

has to interrupt the

shooting and film the scene the next day at the same time to capture, paradoxically, the impression of continuity. Another pro-

an arc light as a substitute for the sun and to keep the light coming from the same direction as at the beginning. But arc light is artificial, and furthermore one ends up with two

cedure

is

to use

suns in the scene, the

artificial

one and the

real one,

each coming

from the opposite direction. Naturally, one can shield the sun with a panel, but that complicates things still further. Rohmer’s idea

was also

hot

have the actors in the shade of a rather leafy tree, which is more realistic, because people rarely sit around talking in the

to

summer

sun, except

on a beach. By studying the movement of

the sun, one spot can be found under a tree that

is

almost always

A

5« in the shade,

and

this

is

Man with

a

Camera

where the scene can be shot

all

day long

without pressure. In

but

La Collectionneuse we did without an

in spite of that,

we

electrician’s crew,

got images which were very natural.

scenes were filmed late in the day,

when

Some

was hardly any with good results even there

because the sun had already set, though at that time the Kodak emulsions (5251) were less sensitive than they are today; they had a 50 ASA rating (although they were certainly beautiful). Some night scenes, like the one light

when

Bauchau ) wakes up and turns on the light a little red lamp behind the bed because La Collectionneuse (Haydée Politofî) is making a lot of noise, were shot with only this red lamp and no additional illumination. Such scenes are fairly commonplace today, but then they were daring. During Patrick

(

Patrick

—

the shooting of this scene, with the lens stop wide open,

was more

I

realized

and gave me more latitude than the Kodak brochures indicated; that is, even when the light meter said the light was insufficient, the film still registered. that the film

sensitive

Photographically speaking, these scenes were actually the best in the movie. It was partly my lack of experience that gave me the audacity to

make them.

had never caught

I

had never been anvone’s

that fear of failure that goes

hand

assistant, so in

I

hand with

professionalism.

had some problems. The scenes that took place at dusk had a strongly predominant orange tone; when we were timing the film I

in the laboratory

understand

(my

first

me and wanted

serious timing), the technician didn’t

and take out the orange (at that time dominant warm hues were not used, as it was thought they would make faces look like tomatoes). It was to correct the colors

impossible to convince him, so

I

had

to act authoritatively.

The

outcome was that people liked the film, which won several prizes and was much discussed. Until then I was not taken seriously in the laboratories because I was an unknown; things changed when the film was successful, and later on, these warm tones became fashionable.

One

of the problems of filmmakers

who

are starting

Professional Life tlicir

careers

is

59

ha\ e to that thev y

do battle with technicians, who

always reject aesthetic innovations and blindly obey the rules laid out

in

the manuals.

had used in the shorts I made in Cuba, I introduced illumination by mirrors into French hlmmakine. Mv innovation was to combine this system with Coutard’s. Reineinberiiiii the

methods

T

Contard projected photoiloods against the ceiling so that the light bounced back with no pronounced shadows. When studio lamps are used for lighting, it is obvious that the light comes

and the shadows are very sharp. This kind of illumination actually exists only in theaters and shop-window from directional

ravs,

displays, never in houses,

much

less in daylight. I realized that

Coutard’s style of lighting, which

I

liked very

much and which

had already been used bv photographers like Cartier-Bresson and some Italian cameramen like G. R. Aldo and Gianni di Venanzo, could be achieved more successfully with mirrors. Instead of

beam

ha\’ine the luminous I

directed

reflected

it

of the mirrors shine onto the actors,

onto the ceiling or a white wall; a soft light was

back and created a

This technique

is

even more interesting

many

because of the

realistic effect.

is

photography

tonalities that sunlight acquires,

(cold tones) at one extreme to red

At noon, sunlight

in color

thought to have

(warm all

from blue

tones) at the other.

the colors of the spectrum

equally balanced, which in photography

is

kmown

as

normal color

temperature. Electric light has dominant reds, and in the early experiments in color film (these problems don’t exist in black and

were used for illumination, people came out reddish. (The same thing happens if a film is shot at dusk, because then the sun has a red dominance. The human eye

white),

when

corrects for

For

it,

electric lights

so

this reason,

it is

not very visible, but film

is

non-adjusting.

manufacturers make lamps with blue

filter

)

correc-

light closer to that of the solar spectrum,

tions; these

produce a

with which,

in theory, the actors’ faces

can be illuminated

in

day-

A

6o time interiors. But

With

use,

in practice there

artificial tone.

—where

why

is

distortions are

Compared with

electric light, the

produced by mirrors is that and allows a good lens opening; above all, it

it is is

as the light outside. Thus, the balance of tones

more

bounced seen through the windows.

light

cjualitv as that

is

actors

—and

tions are

it

exact; the

produces

technicians

more

discovered

—

color

—have

advantage of

verv powerful

same

between outdoor

light

is

is

of the

same

by no means

heat than electric lighting, so that

are not uncomfortable

and work condi-

pleasant.

was not yet

I

less

many

exactly the

Lighting with mirrors has an extra benefit that insignificant:

in

more obvious

indirect sunlight

and indoor

Camera

a

always a dominant tone.

is

lamps become yellowish, which

films the actors skins

an

Man with

totally a professional,

and

I

sometimes think

I

procedure mainly through ignorance, which sometimes encourages boldness. I used ordinarv mirrors, a strategy this

only possible, naturally,

in

summer and

in

verv sunny places like

Saint-Tropez, in houses that are at ground level or have a terrace where the mirrors can be placed. In films like Bed and Board, for

example, which was shot

apartment house,

when can.

I

Of

electric light

am working course,

in Paris

it is

in

is

during the winter, in a five-story the onlv practical solution. But

the countrvside,

I

use mirrors whenever

I

sometimes an inconvenient technicpie, because

moves constantly, the spot of sunlight reflected shifts. Therefore, someone has to watch the mirrors and adjust them to keep the light bouncing properly and at the right angle. All gaffers as the sun

complain, because they find

it

much

easier to plug in a piece of

electrical ecpiipment that stays the

same once the illumination has been decided upon, but nothing can compare with the beautv

of sunlight. I

could often

com inee Rohmer

be done without

his

of something, but nothing could

knowing about

it

and agreeing with

it.

In this

he was unlike other directors, who give the cameraman a free hand and don’t even want to look through the viewfinder themselves. First and foremost, the people in Rohmer’s films are seen

6i

Professional Life realistically.

The image

is

very functional. His criterion

is

that

if

the image portrays the characters simply, and as close to real life as

So

possible, thev will I

be

interesting.

kept the image straightforward.

makeup, except

for the

women who

We

even did without

normally used

it.

As a

result,

things are seen just as they are; the characters are believable,

barely fictional.

always consult the director before choosing the focal length of the lens. Usually, I have had the good fortune to work with directors whose ideas coincide with my own. With Rohmer I I

ne\er have to use either very long or very short focal lengths, since we have alwavs agreed beforehand on lenses somewhere

between 25 and 75 mm. We generally use the 50 mm lens, which more closelv resembles human vision. My three basic lenses were the 50, 32, and 75 mm. \We also used a zoom, but with caution. In later films we dispensed with it completely. As we didn t have tracking equipment, we did some of the moving shots from an automobile; for a few others, the

To sum in

zoom was

up, most of the techniques

I

used

La Collectionneuse: taking advantage

things as they are without too

much

the poor substitute. in later

movies

I

used

of natural light, leaving

touching up, trying to intro-

duce variety into each sequence, differentiating day, dusk, and night by changing color tones. Once the working copy was edited, while it still had no sound and was provisionally printed in black and white to save money, a well-known producer became interested in the film and put up

add the sound track and print better than we it in color. Despite our tiny budget, the result was expected, because although we had thought La Collectionneuse the rest of the funds

we needed

to

would have only limited appeal, it actually attracted a large audience. In fact, it was a success, and ran for nine months at the Git-le-Coeur Cinéma in Paris. It also won the Silver Bear award at the Berlin festival. Barbet Schroeder and Rohmer set themselves up together as independent producers, and the critics began to notice

my work.

The hVild Racers Daniel Haller, Roger

M

Carman— igGy

V second feature film was The Wild Racers, an American

production director of

did so

made

Europe and directed by Daniel Haller. I was photography, but Daniel Lacambre, the cameraman, in

much work

that

it

would have been unfair

have appeared on the credits alone.

Lacambre and

I

be put on the same

I

for

therefore

level.

We

my name asked

to

that

shot the film in

France, England, Holland, and Spain, in five weeks without a break. It

was exciting

The nishes were

to

move around

interesting, but

I

like

nomads.

think the film was poorly

edited. Perhaps this time Haller allowed himself to be influenced

bv Lelouch

or even Resnais, because

lectually pretentious in a

way

(piite

The Wild Racers was

intel-

B movie who made

inappropriate for the

was probably an experiment for Haller, a name for himself later on with more successful films. Roger Gorman produced the film. I don’t know if he disliked it or had other things to do, but he sold it and even removed his name from the credits. Yet as well as producing the film, he had it

really was. It

also directed

it.

There were two cameras: Haller

some scenes with Lacambre, Gorman did others with me, vice versa. Gorman is an amazing person, a dynamo. It was

filmed or

about a third of

Man with

A

64

a

Camera

him organize a big car accident in five minutes, throwing things in and out of the frame, doing something bloody and terrible with mountains of catsup. We learned a tremendous amount from him production techniques, the secret of working

wonderful

to see

—

rapidly, realizing that spending a great deal of time on a scene

mean learned from Gorman

will

be better. Rohmer and Schroeder

does not necessarily

it

also

indirectly,

because

I

acted as the trans-

mitter between them.

an independent, known as '‘King of the B pictures. has directed or produced about a hundred such films, attract-

Gorman

He

is

ing the attention of the

critics,

especially for his versions of

Edgar

Allan Poe. Whatever else one can say about him, he has produced a large body of work that is of remarkable cinematic qualiU^ and

completely unpretentious. I I

mentioned that

to do. is

Often the only thing he has

Sometimes next

left?

quickly

(

I

to

if

handle the camera,

not doing

so.

He

that’s all there

“Shoot

new

to

as

it is.”

What

scene), in this case there

was

a director of photography doesn

it is

because he

arrives in the morning, sets

is

it

two people.

In most cases, however,

want

is

and therefore I want to do The Wild Racers was made very was doing the lighting, the camera

operator would be shooting a for using

to say

to nothing,

sometimes while

good reason

camera operator. Normally especially now, because lighta

the director of photography has less

become simpler and

the framing myself. But as

a

had

this division of labor,

disapprove of

ing has

in this film I

it.

t

more comfortable up the lighting, and is

Splendid! But the fact

is

that only the

person holding the camera knows exactly what photography

is

being produced.

For

me

framing

explained.

is

something indefinable that cannot be

The operator can

between

this

and detailed framing; the

fraction of an inch

more

moving the

learn the mechanics of

camera, and be given points of reference, but there art lies

is

a difference

in

to the right or to the left. It

explained meticulously, but

it

seldom comes out

fully

just as

shifting a

may

all

be

one would

Professional Life

wish. If

^5

person doing

tlie

tlie

lighting isn’t looking constantly at

the scene in the camera’s viewfinder, he

always being distracted

is

by the crew and other elements, and he may

Then

no particular reason one part of the frame be more luminous than another. I still don’t know how to

light exactly.

may

balance the

fail to

for

e\ahiate everything properly without operating the eipiipment

The image maker must be

myself.

When

well as the colors and the lines. \Tlázqiiez’s Las meninas,

Picasso did,

it

becomes

careful to balance the lights as

and delineates

The

abstract forms, as

its

and masses are as imfalling on the figures and

who

director of photography

thinks only about the

without taking the responsibility for framing,

lighting,

working O

A

is

not

serionslv.

“gaffer,” or chief electrician,

on The Wild Racers was an

American who had worked with the old guard real fossil with his “tricks of the trade”

of which,

must admit, were quite

I

prepares the illumination.

When

and

his

Hollywood, a

in

war

stories,

some

useful. In the States, the gaffer

the director of photography gets

to the studio, the lights are half done.

He

has only to refine them.

This gentleman was doing exactly the opposite of what

my

like

clear that the lines

portant as the perfectly balanced light the setting.

one takes a painting

I

wanted.

was not to illuminate but to “unilluminate,” because he would set up many lights, and I would have to turn them off. One day I said to him, “Don’t bother to prepare the lighting in So

task

advance.”

He

immediately began to

Gorman, saying

that

I

didn’t

criticize

know my

me

to Haller

trade. Panic set in,

and

because

the rushes were being developed in the States and

we were

not

me

had

to

put

Gorman

re-

seeing them.

my

foot

They

told

I

should use more

down. “Either he goes or

affirmed his confidence in me. This the States he

was the

first

to give

lights. I

I

go.” Luckily,

is

the man’s great merit. In

people

like Peter

Bogdanovich,

Francis Ford Goppola, Robert Towne, Jack Nicholson, Robert

De

Niro their chance.

The Wild Racers was a great experience. I admired the inventiveness of American filmmakers, whose style was very different

A

66

Camera

a

in the

freedom with which they handled the

They could do

retakes of a cross-cutting shot three

from ours, especially screenplay.

Man with

The French are more timid about this sort of thing, preferring to work more chronologically. the I also learned the dynamics of work and improvisation. I saw weeks

later

and

discipline of

in a different place.

American actors

— they

grumble

less

and are pre-

pared to repeat scenes as often as necessary. Still, The Wild Racers, which was an action film with a plot that took place in the car-racing world, was a fairly ordinary movie. Its script

was

especiallv undistinguished.

mercial success

Europeans

making

it.

to

we had

whom

expected.

it

It

was

Nor did

it

have the com-

really of use only to the

had given work.

We

greatly enjoyed

a

More Barbet ScJiroeder—ig68

TP hanks career all

I

And I

had

the films

popular.

More,

to

It

my

career as a director of photography

really not looked for I

have made

in

office in

France the year

they say, “you’re worth your

it

aesthetically compatible,

opened.

last film,” after

was in greater demand. I have almost always worked with filmmakers with

am

Of

progress.

Europe, More was one of the most

had the biggest box

since, as

—made dramatic

—

since our course

More

whom

through

life

I is

was among people who lived in circumstances very like my own. We were virtually unknown. Barbet Schroeder, for instance, had almost never been determined by elective

affinities.

At that time

involved in professional filmmaking. Paris

sorts of films.

remember office

is

not as big as one

would become part of the the new cinema, whereas nowadays I am offered other

might think, and world of

I

I

it

am

was

logical that

I

not opposed to popular cinema;

we have

that to a certain extent the public votes at the

each time someone buys a

of the film clubs,

and

experimental cinema.

my

My

ticket.

I

come from

to

box

the world

early interests lay in minority cinema,

horizons have expanded since those

i

Professional Life

6g

now I think that if an artistic work reaches a large audience, so much the better. And tliat was what liappened with More. I like to shock producers hv telling them I am not strictly speak-

clavs;

ing a technician.

I

he

like to

at the director’s side, to

establishing a dialogue with him. turniiiix

the camera on. Sometimes

ing

well that

full

when he

I

I

am

help him by

not interested in just

contradict the director, know-

has to explain himself to me, he clarifies

had to proceed like this with Barbet Schroeder in More because it was his first film. I tried to convince him he should “cover” himself, do many takes of the same shot and increase the number of camera angles, even at the risk of having too much, too many options, too many points of view when it came to editing. For a beginner, the most his thoughts.

1 tell

prudent thing

lies in

have

a constructive way.

many

as

cards as possible in one’s hand.

is

to

Sometimes

I

consider myself the

photographv

is

sets. I also like to

goal

was

to direct,

directors. In

assistant,

director’s

since

nothing compared with the job of directing. In

More Barbet Schroeder asked me the

I

any

be involved

and perhaps

case.

to take

some

responsibility for

in editing. After all,

my

first

for that reason I feel very close to

Barbet put

my name in

the credits as artistic

director. I

have made some

films,

the directors have used

which

me

I

will not

which a machine. But

mention here,

rather like a cog in

in

Rohmer, and Schroeder are modest people. A fact that has always surprised me is that the more talented a director is, the more he listens to his colleagues. I like to make films collaborativelv, and therefore Barbet Schroeder is one of the directors with

Truffaut,

whom It

most enjoy working. the element of adventure

I

is

particularly interests Schroeder.

and an

also a director as a critic for

vu par each

.

.

He

He is

is

all

creative activity that

a producer, a catalyst, but

a Renaissance

man.

He began

Cahiers du Cinéma, acted for Jean Rouch in Paris

and

for

Godard

in

Les Carabiniers.

He

gives his

all to

When he produced La Collectionneuse, he went into do so. He was the first to believe in Rohmer. Undoubtedly

film.

debt to

.

actor.

in

A

70

Rohmer would have made

Man with

name sooner and been much more

have taken longer

his

Camera

a

or later, but

it

would

without the

difficult

young Barbet’s faith and confidence in him. After the commercial failure of Le Signe du Lion (The Sign of Leo) nobody believed in Rohmer. While Truffaut, Godard, and Chabrol were alreadv well known, Rohmer, their elder and mentor together with Bazin

—

y

—

in the

Cahiers group, seemed to have been

who would

stranded, a theoretician

left

behind,

never make another

film. It

was Schroeder who gave him the opportunitv to begin work on his first Moral Tale. One day Barbet, who had been only an ofR^eat producer, told

me At

he had an idea first I

talks

for a film

he was planning to direct himself.

listened with skepticism, for in the film world everyone

about projects that are never realized. Even the electricians

or the

makeup

girls

have a secret

script they

a film. Barbet talked about More, I

found outstanding.

and was postponed

It

because no one was willing to finance little

monev he needed.

which was very assistant

We

I

read the

for it.

want

two

to

make

script,

into

which

however,

years,

Eventually he got the

immediatelv assembled the crew,

small, but at least

I

had one

electrician

and one

cameraman.

At that time there were none of today’s ultraluminous cinematographic lenses on the market, at least for the 35 film cameras. In More for the first time I used a Nikor photographic lens especially adapted to fit on the Cameflex; this lens had an f 1.4

mm

which allowed me to film at night in the streets with no extra lighting. There was a new Kodak emulsion, not yet available aperture,

in

France, that had a sensitivitv rating of 100 ASA.

ten 120-meter rolls of this

the States, and

we used

We

had about new emulsion (5254) smuggled in from

it

for the night sequences.

We

shot with

only the light of the Paris streetlamps, and to our surprise we could see everything. It was revolutionary! We had achieved the greatest sensitivity possible in black

emulsion

we

filmed

some scenes

Stephen (Klaus Griinberg)

is

and white! With

in Ibiza at twilight.

waiting for Estelle

this

This

is

same

when

(Mimsy Farmer)

Frofcssional Life to arrive

with

tlie clruiis.

The

actor conies out of the lioiise near

the beach, holding a kerosene lamp because there

We

didn’t use an 85

landscape

is

tion apart discovei'N'

new

fast

and therefore gained a

no

electricity.

lens stop; the

dark blue, while the lamplight shining on his hand,

and body

face,

filter,

is

is

was no other source

orangish. There

of illumina-

from the lamp and the glow of the twilight. This of what could be done b\^ combining fast lenses and the

emulsions was useful

to

me

later on, especially in

Days

of

Heaven and The Blue Lagoon. Shootine

such late hours was not

at

difficult

because sessions

had a particular effect: Barbet wanted to show the day was ending. The scenes were rehearsed beforehand until the light was just right for filming. Since we couldn’t calculate this moment mathematically and we lacked were

short;

we were doing

experience, our technique

\

ignettes that

was simply

to film the shot three or

four times; for example, once at 8:00; once at 8:io; again at

and once more at 8:20, when there was almost no light. Often the last take was the best. In La Collectionneuse there were several twilight scenes rather like this, with the house in the

8:15,

and everything outside bluish. we did without an 85 filter. But we went further in

distance, lighted from within,

There, too,

More.

Cameramen

are often afraid that they will not have

enough

and that the focus and depth of field will be insufficient. At that time, 1968, working in film with photographic lenses at maximum aperture was riskv. Not only that apart from the contrast,

—

Nikor 50

mm,

the rest of our e(|uipment consisted of old, scratched

Kinoptik lenses and a borrowed Cameffex. These defective lenses had little optical precision, as if they had built-in diffusion filters.

We

tried to take

advantage of

pictorial effects; so

by using them for took on the somewhat

this limitation

by necessity the

film

impressionistic visual style that the critics later praised.

zoom, but we used it infreciuently. During the windstorm scene there is an awkward, badly executed zoom which device to allow me I thought would be edited out; it was merely a

We

also

had

a

A

72

M AN WITH

Camera

A

and without interruption from a general view to a close-up. I assumed Schroeder would cut the middle of the zoom, leaving only the beginning and end, eliminating the transition. In fact, he saw in it a dizzying effect that he liked. I told him it would ruin my reputation, that if he had asked me for an into pass quickly

cludable

zoom

and that

I

saw

all

I

would have done

it

better

had intended something quite

the edited footage,

as usual: that

I

and more

different.

carefullv,

But when

I

understood that Schroeder was right

awkward zoom added drama

one of the most

to

violent scenes in the film. I

want

to say

something about

More. In the screenplay there

is

my

involvement

in the sets for

a scene in which the protagonist

bed with a woman in somewhat ambiguous circumstances, and ends up in bed with them both. This scene was described verv baldlv in the text. To avoid vuleardiscovers

ity

his

girlfriend

we used mosquito

in

netting;

we

literallv

drew

a veil over the

Such precautions make us smile todav, but at the time we were shooting the film, nudity was still somewhat daring.

scene.

Obstacles can stimulate the imagination, and this was an economical, efficient idea: the mosquito netting absorbed the light

very effectively, and the scene was highly praised. the

was shot with

It

maximum

aperture our lenses allowed (2.5, 2.3), with onlv the light that came in through the windows and one other bounced off the ceiling with mirrors.

Generally

I

distort reality.

don’t like using wide-angle lenses, because they

But

in

some

exterior sequences in

More

I

could

use them safely. Wide-angle lenses should be employed very cautiously for photographing architecture. When straight lines are involved, the optical distortions

hand,

if

become

evident.

the other

a tree or rocks are filmed with a wide-angle lens

come out with

slightly

odd shapes, they

still

and

look real because

nature creates an infinity of forms. In the shots 18

On

we

did with an

mm wide-angle lens, where the actors were some distance away

from the camera, the cliffs really did look bigger and more overwhelming. It was like Expressionist art.

Professional Life

73

The sun was important It

appears

the ones

1

I

frame, so that, as the

like anotlier character.

one of the few zooms

in the credits in

hav^e done.

More, almost

in

put the sun right

zoom adxanced,

characteristic of this lens

in

I

like

all

the center of the

the interior reflections

formed luminous, shifting

the rings of Saturn. Although in the film

out of

it

is

circles like

supposed

to

be the

was actually the Paris sun, filmed from the top of Montmartre a few months later. There were a few wispy clouds drifting intermittently in front of it, and this made

blindimi Mediterranean sun,

the shot possible.

On

it

the other hand, the shot of the sun that

took in Ibiza was unsatisfactory. filters

are used to reduce

its

It is difficult to film

filters

the sun. If

becomes a moon, because the image is burned-out and

intensity,

the sky turns black; without

we

it

the ball of the sun can’t be seen.

La Collectionneuse, I also used the sun to illuminate the interiors by reflecting it in with mirrors. Since the houses in Ibiza are completely white, this was an easy task; the bounced light was clean and uncontaminated by other colors that As

I

had done

in

might haye affected In general.

its

spectrum.

More was

a

more eomplicated

lectionneuse, partly because of the yariety of

because of

its

its

La Coland partly

film than

scenes,

spectacular style. For example, there

is

a scene

where a car is coming down the streets of Ibiza with its headlights on, and for a few seconds two people are seen lighting a eigarette. For this shot we had to replace the car’s own headlights with more powerful cinema lights. Here I found Gorman’s rapid techniques and the experience I had acquired on The Wild Racers useful, because shooting More was nerye-racking work. This film, like La Collectionneuse, was shot with a Cameflex but no blimp. In other words,

all

the

dubbing and sound were

added afterward. This gaye the image great mobility, which, I should add, is one of the secrets of the yisual superiority of the Italian cinema. (Though it is true that the sound track in Italian films is usually flat and of poor quality. ) Howeyer, for us it was an enormous adyantage not to haye to bother about a microphone

Man with

A

74

a

Camera

appearing indiscreetly over the edge of the frame, and not having

by inconvenient or unforeseen sounds. The camera was lighter without the blimp, and we could move it and reposition it easily and dvnamically. We were lucky with the weather in October and November. to repeat takes spoiled

When we

was still beautiful. Four weeks later the wind suddenly began to blow and it became cold; winter was on the way. On the screen it seemed as if a year had elapsed, which exactly fit the development of the story. I remember clearly the commotion caused by More when it was first

arrived in Ibiza,

shown

at the

Cannes

it

Festival.

tremendously successful both

was not true since the film

in

England or

was

in English.

in

And when

it

opened,

it

was

and commercially. This the States, which is paradoxical,

critically

My

Night at Maud's Eric

I n some

films color

be out of place. (I

am

film in

I

a

I

am

little less

is

not indispensable, and at times

convinced

some

special reasons.

is

true of

)

.

Now

I

The Wild

in

Onlv very recentlv have

I

can even

Child, another

that films are generally

was fortunate enough

made

it

My Night at Mauds

directors exceptionally use black

the last important films period.

this

sure in the case of

did in black and white

color,

Rohmer— ig6g

to

made

and white

be asked

to

for

do two of

black and white during this revisited black

and white, with

Truifant in Confidentially Yours.

From

the aesthetic point of view, this return to black and white

would be a pity not to take advantage of its possibilities just because “it’s not good box office.” It is obvious that color offers a richer palette and makes it possible to play with more elements. But the choice of black and white or is

perfectly justifiable.

color should be

made

It

in

response to

stylistic

demands. In

My

Night at Maud’s the acting was extremely important, and color would have been distracting. Color can accentuate the ugliness of

which seem much more discreet, even elegant, in black and white, where faces become more important than the background or the sets. Color would have been missed

certain natural settings,

Professional Life in

77

More, where the sun played a fundamental

role, lighting

up the

blue sea, the ocher stones, and the hippies’ extravagant costumes.

But

in

Mtf Night at MaucPs the most important exteriors take

place in the snow, which

was

film

shot,

is

is

white. Clermont-Ferrand,

where the

when

a gi*av city, especially in winter, a season

Rohmer’s guiding principle was that

colors scarcely exist.

in a

black-and-white film there must be no reference to colors. For

example,

if

the characters sav thev are drinking a crème de

menthe, the spectator

look green; this won’t happen, however, ing

vv^ater or

vodka.

because he wants

will feel frustrated,

Rohmer

if

it

to

the actors are drink-

wanted the film to have any snperflnons or anec-

particnlarlv

an austere qnalitv, and without color, dotal visual details w'ere eliminated.

The wardrobe was designed so that the suits and dresses were black, white, or grav^ Even the main set Maud’s apartment, constructed in a small studio on the rue Monffetard in Paris was painted black and vv^hite. The pictures on the walls were black-

—

—

and-white photographs. Jean-Louis Trintignant wore gray, Françoise Fabian black; his shirts fur, the

were white, the bedspread was white

lamps and the roses were white. This stratagem made the

work much

easier.

When

the decor of the set

in color,

is

two

contiguous but different colors can look the same in black and

white and can be confused. Of course, an experienced director of

photography knows beforehand what

results

he

is

going to get,

without having to look through the famous smoked-glass monocle

monochrome. But the idea of a black-and-white set which we didn’t invent; it had been used gave us almost exactly the tones that would be in other eras registered on the film, so we didn’t have to transpose colors that

was used

to see things in

—

—

mentally.

Another of the advantages of black and white cheaper. Although the negative

itself costs

is

that

it

is

almost the same, one

can economize throughout the filmmaking process: the lighting is

easier

and therefore takes

less time,

and

so on.

And

in

the film

collections of the future, color films will fade in a relativ^ely short

A

7^

Man with

time, while black-and-white films will

my cinémathèque some of my films will be

Camera

a

last.

For someone

like

myself, with

background, the thought that

least

protected against the passage of

time

is

We X

at

extremely gratifying.

used Double

X

and Double

X

negative and

4X

for the night scenes. Plus

during the day; so the three emulsions were

4X was very useful, especially for the because there we had to respect the scant

mixed. The

scenes in the

church,

natural light-

ing, reinforcing

register

on the

At night

it

only slightly.

The candles were strong enough

to

film.

we used 400 ASA 4X

to film in the streets of

Clermont-

Ferrand, with only street lamps for illumination. As a small support light

I

sometimes used sun guns. These are small quartz

lights

with portable batteries. With black-and-white film portable lights

can be used for as long as they

(which

last

is

about twenty

minutes), but for color they can be used only while thev are at their strongest

(about ten minutes), because as their power dims

moves toward red. the car my work was unsuccessful, probably

the chromatic temperature In one scene inside

opted for the conventional solution.

On

because

I

at night

with no streetlights nothing can really be seen.

a country road

What can

be done? Must one defy logic and create light, as is done in the well-known scenes in submarines or mines, where the lights black out but things can still be seen? Any light inside a car seems artificial

because

Green Room, I

I

it

can’t

be well

justified.

found another solution

Years

later,

in

The

for a similar scene.

used ordinary emulsions, with no special demands for the

laboratory. Directors of photography normally tend to ov^erilluminate,

them work with lens stops closed around 4.5 or often worked with a 2.2, the widest aperture the Cook

which

more.

I

lets

lens allows; that

But

in

is, I

took the risk of getting

Mij Night at Maud’s the risk was

little

depth of

less serious

field.

because the

were technically very simple and there were no shots that needed great depth. In Rohmer’s films the characters are often seated, and they move about very little. It is easier to illuminate settings

Professional Life static shots. If there

is

79

the lens stop more, and then

Todav’s soft lights had 2ot the light,

same

movement

a lot of

effect, in a

still

have

I

to

in a film,

I

have

provide more

to close

light.

not appeared on the market, but

homemade wav.

1

we

decided to bounce the

not against the ceiling this time, but against white panels.

I

certainlv don’t claim to ha\ e invented this procedure, although

I

was probablv one

of the

first

to use

it.

There

is

one drawback:

bv the time it reaches the character being photographed. The stop must be wide open to compensate, and this results in less depth of field and less definition in the backgrounds than most directors of photography want. I ani nearsighted, so this doesn’t bother me too much. It is probably if

the li^ht

is

bounced, half of

how I see life. Some people

think

Rohmer

it is

is

in

lost

league with the devil. Months

had scheduled the exact date for shooting the scene when it snows; that day, right on time, it snowed, and the snow lasted all dav long, not just a few minutes. As a result, there is no break in the film’s continuity, and we had real snow, which is

before, he

verv hard to get and looks more perfect than the artificial snow we used in Adèle H. But it is not just a question of luck; the key

Rohmer’s detailed preparation, which he sometimes completes two vears before shooting the film, and which takes into lies in

account a number of previsions and probability calculations. As usual with Rohmer, editing took only a week, because the

was already in his head while he was shooting. Unlike other directors, he never loses time selecting takes, and in fact refuses to film the same shot more than once. Of course, this is risky. But as there are few sets in his films, and these are not immediately destroyed in the usual way, any faulty take can be film

refilmed a few davs later.

I

often try to insist on an extra take for

but he almost always refuses. His point of view is justifiable. Shooting only one take means such economies of time in both filming and editing that, even if there is a technical problem, doing a retake never wastes more time than has been saved safety,

overall.

A

8o

Man with

Camera

a

W^e worked with a skeleton crew, just as we had done in More, with only an assistant cameraman and one gaffer, no grips, no propinan, no scriptgirl, no makeup. We filmed with an old Arriflex

C camera

with Cook lenses and a blimp. Rohmer was particularly concerned about direct sound, about reproducing the human II

voice truly and purely, in a film which

my first encounter whom I have often sound

in direct

had

so

much

text.

with Jean-Pierre Ruh, the sound collaborated since.

in the

cinema.

I

am

This was

man with

a passionate believer

think the image

enhanced by good sound, with several distinct planes. Rohmer never relies on background music to emphasize scenes. The only music in My Night at Mauds is heard when the two friends (Vitez and Trintignant) go to Leonide Kogans concert; thus, the music is justified by the narrative. Otherwise, Rohmer believes that underI

is

moment of emotion with dramatic chords is a compromise, somehow a recognition by the filmmaker of his inability to comlining a

municate feelings by legitimate means: narration through images, words, and sounds.

Almost the whole

film

was conceived

in

medium

shots.

There

was, however, one dramatic use of a close-up, when Maud (Françoise Fabian) recounts the car accident and the loss of the man she loved. Rohmer generally reserves the use of close-ups for such special

moments. He knows that the close-up exaggerates

things

and increases

a film,

it

will

Despite

and was

its

their expressiveness. If

no longer be

effective

when

arid theme, the fact that

totally unspectacular,

it

it is

used too often

it is

really needed.

was

in

and contrarv

in

black and white

what we were expecting, the film was more successful with both critics and audience than La Collectionneuse. My Night at Maud’s was nominated for the Oscar and was chosen for the Cannes Festival. It won the Louis Delluc prize, and was sold to, and shown in, almost every country in the world. Todav it is a film classic. to

The IVild Child François Truffaut— ig6g

François Truffaut asked me to make this film because he had liked my black-and-white photography in My Night at Maud’s. As films are now generally in color, Truffaut thought I was one of the last to understand black-and-white techniques; actually, I was and My Night at Maud’s was my first black-and-white feature film. That I was being offered the chance to work with Truffaut I have already mentioned how much I admired his a novice,

—

films

—seemed

like a

dream come

true.

one of those people with whom it is sheer pleasure to work. As Jean Renoir did, he creates an excellent atmosphere around him, and this shows through in his films. Unlike with so many other directors, there is no hysteria when Truffaut works, no fuss or bother; everyone in I

was surprised

to find that Truffaut

the crew behaves in a friendly way.

is

The work moves along

gently, at an excellent pace, but with no feeling of pressure.

Truffaut’s characteristic talent,

he

is

a

man who

mode

is

cooperation.

it

down

or accept

who needs no

it,

all

his great

listens to the suggestions of the

working with him and considers any comment turn

With

but his attitude

is

carefully.

people

He may

not that of the genius

help: he listens to the set designer, to the assistant

Professional Life

8S

and even to the makeup people and the grips. Tliis was particularly true in The Wild Child, since Truffaut was playing the leading role and needed perspective to judge his scenes, which, naturally, he couldn’t see. But director,

Suzanne

ever\'thing

Schiffinan, to the actors,

we around him brought

the strength of his personality.

to his film

The

was

filtered

“Truffaut touch”

is

through always

unmistakable.

Wild Child I used a normal crew for the first time. It was verv small bv American standards, but (juite acceptable for France: two assistant cameramen, two electricians, two grips. In Tlic

Until then

I

had shot

simple way, functioning like a docu-

in a

mentarv filmmaker. Now I had more complicated things to do: camera movements with long tracking shots, scenes with many extras, contrasts of light and shade, and the illumination of wider spaces. Black and white can make a film seem strange and stylized. Since realitv exists in colors, just by doing without them, one

immediatelv achieves an extremely elegant aesthetic transposition of things. It is almost impossible to show bad taste working in black

fact that

liked to

and white. Although there

huge mistakes are possible

make

is

an enormous stimulus

in the

in color filming, I

would have

same

time, as an

a color version of the film at the

exercise in comparison. But of course, no producer can or wants to finance

such an experiment.

always admired the photography of the silent cinema, and The Wild Child gave me the chance to pay homage to it. The I

cinematographers tors

(Dreyer and

who worked Stiller),

with the great Scandinavian direc-

the Americans (Griffith and Chaplin),

or the French (Feuillade) used very beautiful indirect lighting.

They

built sets in the

open

air,

with no ceilings, and

when

they

were not working in the shade, they screened the light through sheets which filtered out the sunlight. Those professionals used natural light, either because they did not have enough money to use substitute lighting or

because they lacked the crews and the

technology that was developed later on. Completely unaffected.

Man with

A

84 their style

had an

a

Camera

austere, purified precision that has since

been

Landscapes, faces, and objects ask only for their own beauty, unadorned, free of pathos, like the world seen for the lost.

first

time.

Truffaut wanted

me

to create a certain archaic tone:

the transitions and fades of the silent cinema.

problem:

how

to

was used

had

I

likes

study the

to

produce fades outside the laboratory

negative lowers the quality of the shots). that

I

he the

(

came up with

dupe

the

iris

filmmaking, an idea to which Truffaut immediately responded with enthusiasm. C. Rivière, my assisin silent

J.

tant, set out to find

an old

one of those used

iris,

in the earlv

days

He found one in a place where they rented filming equipment. When we tested it, we noticed that we got the best of the cinema.

results

with a wide-angle

precise, •

1

until

•

it

lens.

and we got a perfect

The

outline of the

iris

was more

dark ring slowlv closing O isolated the essence of the image and then ended in total .

darkness.

effect of a

-

1

The

of refinement,

technicjues of the silent film reached a high level

and

its

secrets will disappear with

its

creators.

We

must rediscover these techniques. The sparse effects of the iris that are seen in today’s cinema are done in the laboratory: the edges are too clear-cut, too mechanical, as in cartoons, and the photographic quality of the shot deteriorates with numerous manipulations in the optical the silent film had the In the

Riom

region,

On the other hand, the iris of qualitv, now lost, of a handmade thing. where we shot, we used authentic period lab.

mansions especially restored, redecorated, and furnished. Truffaut refuses to work in a studio; he likes natural settings, which allow

him

to conceive his shots

as

continuous movements from

in-

doors to outdoors or vice versa. These are almost always justified by the entrances and exits of his characters. In this way he respects the geography of a place and achieves a greater degree of realism. This is the opposite of what used to happen in films before the New \\ ave, when a character would appear in front of a house a real exterior

and

as soon as

he crossed the threshold,

we would

S5

Professional Life

because the

find ourselves cut into a studio set, nninistakahle

layout and the

liiihtiuo;

The Wild Child

when

electricity,

adays

create

if

in the

ASA

is

a

wanted

I

window

to re-

interiors.

night scenes:

I

was using 4X

rating. Generally speaking,

Wong Howe, who

there

day

the daytime;

in

other eras, and therefore

in

lidit for the

400

this has a

James so

not uuusiial to turn an electric light on

window

Now-

caudles were the uoriual means of lighting.

had an advantage

and

so artificial.

a storv that takes place in another age, before

was not the case

this

I

it is

is

were

I

film,

agree with

always tried to make his light logical;

in the set, or a lighted

lamp,

it

becomes

the principal light source. Candles, for instance, have inspired the most absurd conventions in the cinema. If a candle a wall,

it is

completely

both the candle and

moving about with

And

illogical to see

lighting

on the wall the shadow of

sconce. Spotlighting an actor

its

who

is

a candlestick produces a not very real effect.

we tried to use real candlethat we had to manipulate the

candles never flicker in films! So

The Wild Child. It is true candles in certain wavs to intensify light in

the light did

come from

am

their

normal luminosity. But

the candles themselves; they were not

used merely for their value I

is

as symbols.

convinced that conventions survive

sheer mental laziness.

I

was conscious

in the

cinema out of

of this during the forest

scenes in The Wild Child. Traditionally an are light

is

needed

to

illuminate a thicket in a wood, because the patches of sun and

shade that penetrate the foliage are very distinct and the characters’ faces might be unevenly lit. The arc light, on the other hand, would compensate for the shadows. But I didn’t like this procedure. The patches exist, so let’s keep them. This decision, furthermore, allows for enormous savings, since

it

avoids bringing

and generators into inaccessible places. If there was not enough light, all we had to do was prune the trees in certain places. Then the light that came through was similar in (piality arc lights

to the light in the patio of a house,

and beautiful

into the bargain.

Man with

A

86

To achieve

the ehect

filming during the

day

known

as “clay for night”

such a

in

Camera

a

wav

(which means

as to get a nocturnal eilect

on the screen) certain rules must he obeyed.

A

too-hright sky

must be avoided, and shooting must be done from above, so that only the ground shows in the frame. When a wide sweep of countryside

is

being filmed, there

is

nothing for

it

but

to use this

The Wild Child, for instance, the and the landscape is supposedlv lit by

day-for-night technic jue. In child runs

away

at night,

moon; the scene is shot from above, and as the child runs toward the background, a plain and a wood can be seen the sky

the

—

The sky

when

the child

drinks from the river and later runs through the trees.

The day-

remains out of

for-night effect

partly on film,

how

sight.

is

still

not seen

depends partly on how the

it is

is

is

printed and

do half the underexposing when I done in the laboratorv. The effect is

exposed:

and the other half

film

I

marked on the negative, but not totallv, because directors sometimes change their minds and decide the scene should take place during the day; I

used a red

white

this

is

this

is

filter

another reason for prudence.

in the day-for-night scenes.

necessar\^ to

make

A

also

In black and

the sky darker, in case

it

is

seen

makes faces stand out more and therefore heightens the contrast; this gives black and white its accidentally.

red

filter

slightly lunar cjualitv.

In a night scene in Itard’s patio or garden, the child swings

and looks at the moon, while the doctor watches from the window. W e shot two versions of this scene, one in davlight using day-fornight techniques, the other with electric light. In the end

we used

was better than the other from the photogra phic point of view (both were extraordinarily alike when thev were projected), but because of the rhythm of the movements of the latter, not because

it

Jean-Pierre Gárgol, the child actor.

To

illuminate the scene

we

put a single 2,000-watt (juartz light at the right height about ten yards away from Gárgol. I wanted a clear-cut effect to give the impression of moonlight with one single, elongated shadow.

87

Professional Life

There has been an evolution in color films.

1

will

have more

in tlie

to say

technique of day for night

about

it

in the discussion of

Daifs of Heaven.

They were eliminated in Truffaut’s later period films, like Adele II. and The Green Room. But I remember at least one in The Wild Child with satisIn

The Wild Child we used only

Often the zoom lens

faction.

scene

—

the prologue

wild child

is

used for convenience, but

is

—nothing

a few zooms.

else could

at the top of a tree,

in this

have been possible. The

swinging rhythmically. The zoom

widens slowlv, and we see that the tree is one among thousands in a huge, panoramic view of the wood, in the immensity of which

zoom

the child appears minuscule; eventually the

movement

s

backward

ended by an iris that singles out the child. We shot from one hilltop to the next; the deep valley

is

filmed this

between the two made it completely impossible to lay tracks. Truffaut likes more mobile camerawork than Rohmer. He tends to follow the actors’ movements at medium distance with dolly shots. Sometimes he makes large descriptive sweeps from one thing to another (from one see

what

is

happening

window

to another, for

example, to

inside). Truffaut also likes to use the plan-

séquence, choreographing the movements of actors and camera all

day

organizing and rehearsing one of these plans-séquence. But

how

so as to

minimize editing. Sometimes

we would spend

time was gained by not filming complementary and often useless shots to “cover ourselves,” how much time was saved in

much

editing,

and above

all,

how much

conception came through

For

me and

in

of Truffaut’s pure

and masterful

the final product.

everyone involved, shooting The Wild Child was a

deeply gratifying experience. Because I like working with Truffaut so much, and the quality of his films is so exceptional, I have always tried to organize my schedule to

fit

in

with his plans. As a

nine films with him.

result,

I

have now made

I

1

7

^

g

^

1

1

^ r

.