Submitted by
Malcolm Pratt
Original at
6 Degrees
Cinematography Q&A
Interview with Mike Figgis, Jack Cardiff, Vadim Jean and Mike Fox
26th April 1999, Phoenix Cinema, Finchley, London
On Monday 26th April at the Phoenix Cinema - Finchley, 6degrees chaired
a cinematography panel as part of the "Shorts and Firsts" festival. In conversation
were Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Internal Affairs), Jack
Cardiff (Powell & Pressburgers cinematographer), Vadim Jean (Leon the
Pig Farmer) and Mike Fox (Jean's DOP on One More Kiss)
6Degrees to Mike Figgis - You may have been half joking, but you
recently said that Miss Julie is your stab at DOGMA 95. Can you elaborate
on that?
Mike Figgis - Well I find it interesting that DOGMA has sprung up
in Scandinavia, but things don't spring up in isolation. In the same way
that the punk movement didn't spring up just out of the dissatisfaction
with the crap that the recording industry had become. I think DOGMA has
sprung up, notably in Scandinavia, but also throughout the film-producing
world because filmmakers, some filmmakers, are becoming more dissatisfied
with the abuse of cinema language and its manipulation through big budget.
We might as well say the "H" word - it's Hollywood! There are some brilliant
filmmakers in Hollywood but the lure of the dosh has been a totally corrupting
factor in the way films are made.
Now, filmmaking is basically open to anyone through video - it's cheap and
there really isn't any reason why anyone in the world can't make a film.
One of the things that really concerns me, and DOGMA is a really good example
of this as well, is that the last 20 or 30 years of abuse of film language
and cinematography, in conjunction with the horrific growth in the MTV school
of editing, has totally corrupted the language of photography and that a
lot of young filmmakers haven't a clue what a camera movement is! I would
just like to make this my stand for the evening: That now is the time when
there is this access and it is the time to talk about what a camera movement
means. So I would ask the really simple question "If you own a tripod, why
don't you use it sometimes"?
6Degrees to Vadim Jean and Mike Fox - Continuing the DOGMA theme,
you have both been working just with available light on you latest film,
which is very much part of the "Vow of Chastity". Can you tell us something
about that?
Vadim Jean - I've never taken a vow of Chastity! (Laughs) Mike here
has been doing it for years - shooting with available light. Shooting documentaries.
How many years Mike?
Mike Fox - Oh, about 20 years.
Vadim Jean - So to most documentary filmmakers this is not a new
thing at all. It's what God, or whatever's out there, has given us. The
light that we live in is often very beautiful and if you can catch that
on cellulite (laughs), sorry celluloid, then in many ways why do anything
else except capture what there really is. It's people like Mike and Jack
that are able to do that.
Interestingly I think the experience of the film that we have just made
together has been that if you take away a lot of the things that are not
to do with the filmmaking, but to do with the ego and showing how big a
whatsit you've got, it actually frees you up.
Mike Fox - When I went into the film industry quite a long time ago,
the thing that occurred to me was that there were two choices given that
cinematography was what drove me personally. All my reference points were
in cinema, cinema that people were going to see at that time. So, there
were two choices for me. The first was that you could go into the camera
department and wait for the deadman's shoes and if you were lucky, you might
get somewhere by the time you were forty-five and might even get to touch
the camera a little later than that. Or there was television.
As a matter of coincidence, in my view, all the things that were exciting
in British film were actually happening in Television. It was the film industry
that needed the talent. TV was were all the ideas where, that's where people
took the kind of chances that anyone who went to see European films would
expect as a matter of course. I was very interested! At the time British
cinema was either high-gloss and financed from the States or it was "Confessions
of a Carry On". Television, especially film documentary, was exciting and
it taught me a lot of things.
I kind of realised the importance of being the kind of cameraman that listens
because I was told by a sound recordist "Cameramen don't listen and you
will never be any good unless you do." What he taught me was to back off
from the idea that cinematography was a kind of high table - to realise
it was, after all, a language. You learned to move the camera primarily
in response to what is going on and secondly to pick up on the rhythm of
the dialogue. Hence my ongoing interest in not using light, because in tandem
with the practicality of not having two trucks out on the road, what you
have to do is relax, let stuff wash over you and move the camera as a response.
Make it look as good as you can in the process.
The exciting things about my experience last year, and it was my first feature,
one it was shot on Panavision and two we were lucky, we had all the luck
on our side. We had modern stocks, fast lenses, good weather and a wonderful
cast and an intense story. Because we were a small group of people everybody
was very involved, as one tends to be in documentary. Everyone knew where
the script was going. It was the sum total of everything I wanted to do.
6Degrees to Jack Cardiff - Of course Jack you also learned your trade
in documentary, producing the "World Windows" films.
Jack Cardiff - Well I feel such a very old man when I say this but
I actually started in 1918 as a child actor. The extraordinary position
of films today when you consider that Titanic cost something like
$300m to make and I think that African Queen, that I photographed,
cost in the region of $2m. In fact when I was an operator the average cost
was around £50,000. I suppose films today have grown up and there is
a tremendous enthusiasm, like it or not, for that kind of film.
I remember some years ago being at a rather posh party and someone said
"What do you do"? I said "I'm in the film business." And he went "Ha ha
ha ha ha" - Today it's not so funny!
Talking about available light though; I wrote something the other day that
I further subscribe to here; "the art of the cameraman is to work without
his work being noticed". Sometimes on special occasions cinematography can
lead. Black Narcissus was made for cinematography - the reason the
nuns failed in their attempts was because the place was so beautiful. The
cinematography was a piece of cake! But in general the cameraman's work
shouldn't be noticed. If you are in a room and the light comes through a
window and bounces back from a wall, you examine it in detail and you realise
that gives you your soft filler light. But in most cases if you are a big
film star and you walk around the room you will look terrible. So that's
why the cameraman has to be very clever and put lights bounced off walls
to make stars look good wherever they are. It used to be in Hollywood that
wherever the stars where they were in constant back light.
I must just tell you this story, excuse me breaking into a story like this
but I think it's terrible funny. There was this big French star, can't remember
her name, but she was going to do this scene in a water tank and the director
thought he would do the right thing and have the water warmed. It took most
of the day to get the water to the right temperature. She got in and she
was furious - "Oh you zilly fool, when ze water is not 'ot my titties are
not 'ard!" Sorry don't know why I told that story.
When I first started with Michael Powell, it was just made for a cameraman.
He was such a wonderful director to be with, he was brave and very courageous.
I would suggest all kinds of ideas and he would say "I love it, let's do
it!" On A Matter of Life and Death we wanted to fade in on the beach
in Devon, which was supposed to be heaven and Michael said "I hate these
fades from black - I wish we could fade without this blackness!" I said
"Michael, just look though the camera." And I walked round to the front
of the camera went up to the lens and went "Huuuuuh" and breathed on the
lens so that he couldn't see anything. Then the breath sort of faded and
revealed the scene. I used to do all these tricks in-camera, but now anything
that comes up it's always "Oh don't worry about that it's special effects,
they'll do it afterwards!"
Questions are opened to the floor.
Floor to Jack Cardiff - Can I ask Mr Cardiff, out of his great works
over many years does he have a personal favourite in terms of it being as
close to what he had hoped for?
Jack Cardiff - First of all The Red Shoes because that was
a happy collaboration with Michael Powell. There was a terrific co-operation
and it was creative all the way through.
But really I would have to say Sons and Lovers because of the adversity
on that film. The producer stayed in Hollywood, he never came to England
so I never really had a producer and the London office of 20th Century Fox
never came to the studio! It was his (the producers) intention to show Hollywood
that the film could be made for a very low budget and so everything had
to be cut down.
When I went to Hollywood to get the okay on the script there was this extraordinary
scene because the producers there said "Jack, we've got to make some changes
to the script." You see there was this scene where the girl says to the
boy "You shall have me!" - this was Lawrence's dialogue. They said we couldn't
say that! Well in the book, they make love eventually and it's a bit of
a failure because she's rather frigid and worried. He says to her "you hated
it didn't you, you hated it! You shut your eyes and clenched your fists
and I felt like a criminal." The producers said "Well. You can't say that."
So the new scene was Dean Stockwell looking out the window and the girl
is lying down and she say "What's the matter?" and he replies "You would
have hated it."
So that was my first big film as a director. I decided to go right back
to the book. The interesting thing was that when I took it back to Hollywood
to show it to the censors in this great theatre, the lights went up and
they said "Well Mr Cardiff we see that you haven't listened to our advice
about these cuts." And I said "No I didn't." They said "Well it's all done
in such good taste we shan't touch a frame of it."
So really to come back to the question, that was my favourite film because
it was such a triumph over adversity.
Floor to Jack Cardiff - I always thought it was rather ironic that
your first film as director should be shot in black and white given your
colour reputation.
Jack Cardiff - Yes, yes that's true. The fact was I just felt that
it should be in black and white because it was all coalmines and grit.
Floor to Jack Cardiff - You photographed Marilyn Monroe. Can you
tell us more about that?
Jack Cardiff - Well how many days have we got? Actually she was a
lovely woman. Larry called her schizo and he was right in a way. When I
first met her I thought my God this is a schoolgirl - just a young girl.
She never swore, of course everybody swears in the film business, but she
wasn't like that.
She was doing Bus Stop and she showed me this new white makeup that
she wanted to wear and I told her it would make her teeth look dark. There
was Marilyn, my wife and this other woman from 20th Century Fox and they
all went off to the ladies room. The Fox woman said to Monroe that she thought
the Italians were so dark and handsome and didn't she think that dark and
handsome was so much more romantic. Marilyn replied "I don't really care
as long as they think dark!"
Quite often she couldn't remember her lines and also she worried about her
tummy as she was putting on weight at the time. She said "Jack, you've just
got to warn me with a signal before a take if my tummy is showing." Well
okay, my gaffer's name was Tom so I said "When I call Tom, that means tum
you see and you should pull in your stomach." So, before a take I might
call "Tom!" and poor Tom would come running "Yes?" "Oh, oh nothing." All
the time. And then of course she had this line, something like "I'll see
you next Wednesday" and it came out as "I'll see you and Tom next Wednesday!"
Somehow we would do all these takes where she would fluff or dry and in
desperation Larry (Olivier) would say can we take 2 and 3 and 5, etc. But
when we saw the rushes next day she was fabulous - she just had something
about her!
Floor to Panel - Can you tell us something about the process that
goes on between the director and the cinematographer? How do you go about
getting exactly what you want?
Vadim Jean - Well I like to be a technical director, I like to know
as much as I can about the process. Also I don't want to ask Mike (Fox)
to do something that is absolutely impossible because then you get yourself
into a hole. I think we work very well together.
I don't know if you know but there's a thing called video-assist where you
can actually see what is being shot through the camera. A lot of directors
end up with their heads buried in this thing, often behind a light shade
and spend the whole shoot watching a small screen. On this last film I actually
did away with video-assist and left Mike to it. Because I know lens sizes
and roughly at what distance the size of the image will be it meant that
I could actually watch the performances a lot more.
That's one example where the principle of using the light that is available
kind of led our relationship. I would watch a take and, in my head, work
out what I thought he might have missed. I would say to Mike "Do we do another
one?" and he would say yes or no. So I would probably talk to the cameraman
directly more than amyone else.
Floor to Vadim Jean - But presumably you plan ages before hand?
Vadim Jean - It varies. On this one we were very much putting actors
in a space and then shooting it. A lot unrehersed. I would say something
like "I want to shoot this scene here" but, because we were only using the
light that was available, that would mean we would need to need to take
into account the window. One scene we shot was in an attic, an attic with
no light! Now that breaks all the rules. It had two skylights and you can
see the way we had to use the space.
Jack Cardiff - That's another thing wrong today. I've seen on soaps
today actors that are about three feet from a wall and they have a halo
of light they are so well backlit. Where is that coming from? Through the
wall?
6degrees to Mike Figgis - You chose to shoot your last three films
on Super16. Why is that?
Mike Figgis - Life is short and one of the most boring things about
filmmaking is that they take a long time to make. Unfortunately the really
enjoyable bit is the shortest bit. The last film was a 3-week shoot, the
one before that was a four-week shoot and Leaving Las Vegas was a
four and a half-week shoot. They're shrinking. The experience gets better
and better at the time but then you seem to get punished for the next year
while you try and sell the damn thing.
One thing to be aware of is that film has become so conventional as, technically,
it has got better and better - lenses have got sharper, a hundred times
sharper than in Jack's day, and with film stocks the grain has got finer
and finer. Cranes have got more fluid. Steadicams have got more fluid. It's
really got up It's own jaksey, it's become a kind of lets go and prostrate
ourselves on the altar of technical perfection.
It's interesting when you consider that photography liberated painting and
at the point of the onset of the film camera you got the onset of impressionism,
abstract impressionism. In other word paining was allowed to become a much
more experimental art form - some would argue. What is interesting is that
cinema hasn't had that liberation in a sense. The people who are nor artistic
but control filmmaking are obsessed with perfection. In the 60s there was
a big splurge of experimental techniques. What I did on the last film, not
Miss Julie the one before, I shot on Ectochrome, which as an old
newsreel film and you can do a process called 'cross-processing' where you
turn it from a positive into a negative. During that process you have no
control over the colour, whilst some people would argue that you could do
that in post the whole point is that turns you into a control freak. I love
the idea that you don't have any control.
Because of a three-week shoot you don't have the time for the lighting,
you don't have the time for the usual indulgences of filmmaking - which
is basically watching paint dry. Standing around drinking cups of coffee
and gossiping - but actually very little work getting done and actors getting
so nervous and frustrated because there's ten hours of hanging around in
makeup followed by twenty minutes of what you are supposed to do well. It's
like starting a racehorse when you've kept it waiting in the box.
My background is in performance. So I love my actors but I love my cinematographer
too. I try to create an environment, which is exciting for both of them.
I use two cameras all the time, shoot on Super16 and a magazine that will
give you a twenty-minute take. So on Miss Julie, for example, we
shot a 14-page sequence in one take. A lot of rehearsal, they knew their
lines and having then used that as a template because you will never get
the same intensity and dynamic between and an actor and a camera in a rehearsal.
Forget it, it's a waste of time! Plus you're losing energy that way.
The other thing that I have noticed is that the cameraman, who is the boss
of the image, does the master shot and gets it right, has good movement,
good technique and then I go round the corner and you get a very interesting
piece of light and the editor comes into your brain and says it would be
a good idea to get a cutaway or a shot of his hands that might get me out
of trouble. So I am constantly nicking those shots.
Going back to your original comment about DOGMA, there is something about
it that is high energy. Look at the Oscars last year. Why Festen
didn't win best cinematography, best actor, best director, best film! Compared
to any other film that was in there and in was shot on a very small DV camera
and yet it's a classically shot film and a classically edited film so that
says something about the energy of the film. Most contemporary films lack
energy. However you jerk it up in post-production, however exciting you
make the score and however exciting the editing is - the audience, underneath
it all, can detect it all and can tell when a film is basically artificial.
Jack Cardiff - Talking of long takes. Of course Hitchcock made
Rope whereby he shot a whole reel in one take, but it was not that
difficult in the way that he did it because the whole set was one room.
Just like a television series I suppose, that sort of thing. The camera
just tracked in and out and shot whole reels in one take.
He got very ambitious after that because, obviously, it had great financial
advantages. He decided to make Under Capricorn, which was set in
Australia in a huge mansion. I was the cameraman on it.
A lot of good lessons came out of Hitchcock. Like for instance he would
only ever cast any actor if they didn't look like any other actor. The number
of times I've been watching something with my wife or son and said "Isn't
that so and so" and they say "no, that's the other actor dear."
We would rehearse for one reel every few days. One scene we started outside
this mansion, which was a whole stage, on this huge electric crane. We had
taken a year's supply of carpets from the cinema circuit and covered the
whole stage so that we could track anywhere. We tracked in through the hall,
which was circular with an enormous staircase, turned right into the kitchen,
scene, scene - all over the place - back to the hall?
Mike Figgis to Jack Cardiff - You were operating?
Jack Cardiff - I was the cameraman, the lighting cameraman.
Then we would go into the drawingroom and go round into the hall, up the
stairs and along the passage into where Ingrid Bergman was asleep in the
bed. We tracked into her room and instead of tilting down to the bed, because
the camera was so heavy the whole bed would tilt up towards us!
I had people hiding all over the set with lamps. They would pop up, shine
a lamp and have to hide again. The fact was it was a most difficult job
because I had to light something like 7 or 800 set-ups in one take! But
the net result was very ordinary photography that had taken a super effort.
Mike Figgis - This is one of the things I was talking about. In one
of the takes on Miss Julie we were trying to do that 14-minute take
and it was a complete disaster. There were moments when the actor does something
and you "Oh great camera movement." You swing around and there's the boom-man
standing there!
