Photographing the Dramatization of Reality
Spoilers!
For In Cold Blood, Tracks, Fruitvale Station, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and mentions of The Lighthouse, Parasite, The Two Popes, and Ford v Ferrari.
Film is a visual medium. Through pictures and sound, filmmakers around the world employ the medium to tell their stories. Where there’s a great story, there’s a great film. But stories, once they’re adapted for the screen, do not draw their strength solely from the writing. Here, the art of the visual comes into play. Production design, color, costume and makeup, location, and, of course, cinematography, all play crucial roles in bringing a story to life. The director of photography is in charge of the visual aspect of the film, serving the director’s vision while also providing their own unique perspective. How does a director of photography do that? How do they handle that responsibility?
Some go through meticulous planning. Storyboard after storyboard, gathering stacks of reference photographs and movie stills and paintings to refer to, countless rehearsals with stand-ins to get that camera movement just right. To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail, they might say. And it is most definitely true. But some also encourage embracing the serendipity of the moment. They look for the things that you simply can’t plan for. They look for happy accidents.
Conrad Hall, one of only six cinematographers to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, had one such happy accident on the set of In Cold Blood, directed by Richard Brooks. Lighting Perry Smith (Robert Blake) against a window wet with rain as he delivers a monologue, Hall noticed that the streams of water appeared like tears upon Smith’s face. Now, one of the most iconic shots of his career, Hall always made sure to emphasize the luck in finding it in happenstance.
“People think you’re a genius for planning something like that, when in reality you were just smart enough to notice it and exploit it.”
— Conrad Hall
In Cold Blood is a black-and-white film made at a time when color was very much established in the motion picture industry. Why, then, forgo color?
The film is based on true events, and as such, Brooks and Hall wanted to maintain that truth in their film. At the same time, this was a character study, exploring the motives, thought processes, and moral dilemmas of the killers. “We decided to shoot in black-and-white because we wanted to make it real; we were filming in the actual locations where the various incidents in the story had taken place, including the actual murder sites, and the use of black-and-white gave the film a heightened sense of truth without making things too lurid,” recounts Hall (Pizzello). Color could distract. It could have either exaggerated or downplayed the reality of the events. Considering the context of the time period in which this movie was made, including color might have overwhelmed audiences, especially when they know that these scenes depict things that actually transpired at the Clutter home. Removing the alluring quality of color allowed Brooks and Hall to explore those moralities on their own terms.
Black-and-white film has its own inherent qualities to it. It’s a step removed from reality, so one could argue that it keeps audiences from sympathizing with Smith and Hickock. We spend the entire movie with them, but the black-and-white is a constant reminder of the atrocity they commit near the end of the film. The style also makes contrast in shots very evident. At the beginning, we see all shades of gray as we’re introduced to the two soon-to-be killers. Later on, when they’re in the Clutter house, it’s bright flashlights against a sea of darkness. It’s now a hard contrast that promotes an evil atmosphere, a visual cue for what’s to come.
Since we’ve adapted to color, black-and-white feels antiquated; from another time. Filmmakers today still choose to make black-and-white films, taking full advantage of the emotional impact that black-and-white holds. Jarin Blaschke, director of photography for The Lighthouse, directed by Robert Eggers, utilized old lenses, vintage film stock, and a claustrophobic 1.19:1 aspect ratio. Combined with black-and-white film, Eggers and Blaschke set out to make “an immersive, transportive experience” that felt like photography of the early 20th century (Giardina, “How ‘The Lighthouse’”). The psychological thriller absolutely achieves that.
The Best Picture winner of 2020, Parasite, was re-released in a black-and-white version earlier this year. This wasn’t planned while they were still filming, so grading had to be done from scratch for some scenes. But why go through that trouble? Bong Joon Ho explains, “…when I think of the classics, they’re all in black and white. So I had this idea that if I turned my films into black and white then they’d become classics,” (Ritman). A superficial reason, perhaps, but a whimsical and charming one as well. Also, while regrading the film, Bong found that watching the film in black and white enhanced the disparity between the rich and poor. There is life yet in the power of black and white cinematography.
When given the chance, however, color can be used to great effect. Mandy Walker proves this in her cinematography for Tracks, directed by John Curran. Shooting in a luxurious 2.40:1 aspect ratio, Walker captures the expansive desert of Australia in all of its wide glory. Detailing Robyn Davidson’s 1,700-mile journey to the ocean, Walker never stops reminding us of how far Davidson has yet to traverse. She knew from the start that “the photography was an important part of showing [Davidson’s] emotional and physical journey,” (Giardina, “Behind the Lens”) Without those glorious wides to juxtapose Davidson’s minuscule convoy with the entirety of West Australia, the mission loses its stakes and its scale.
Shooting on 35mm film with anamorphic lenses, Walker rendered some truly rich oranges and blues in the desert’s sands and skies. “I still got a thrill watching the printed film dailies, and nearly every time it would look better than I thought, like those skies with their detail,” Walker recalls (Past, Present & Future). The vibrancy of this film brings a visual humanity to Davidson’s story; shooting this in black-and-white would have hurt it far more than it would have helped it. The sweeping vistas have a serene beauty, and a significant part of that beauty is in the color.
Being a story that takes place in the 70s and inspired by 70s-era films herself, Walker was well-equipped to keep the film authentic. She drew from Australian hits like Walkabout and Wake in Fright. You can put the camera wherever you like in the desert, so it’s useful to have these frames of reference to determine which spot is the best place for the camera. Shots in Tracks are wide enough to convey there’s still a long way to go, but they’re also close enough to convey Davidson’s unwavering determination. It’s all about balance.
Where one might find balance between herself and the camera, another might find balance between herself and the director. Rachel Morrison, director of photography for Fruitvale Station, made many compromises with director Ryan Coogler. One such compromise was the lighting of the BART Station where Oscar was shot. Normally, the station is lit warmly. Morrison wanted to cool it down, but Coogler wanted to stay true to the station. They met in the middle to create a neutral atmosphere that still felt like BART, but also had room for the emotional drama of the climax.
Filming on the BART platform proved to be a tough challenge. With only 12 hours over 3 days in the middle of the night, Coogler rehearsed all the shots beforehand in a parking lot. They taped out an area that matched the dimensions of the platform and Morrison practiced her movements “like you would football plays” (Lambert). And while Coogler raced to get his 20 shots, he also focused on staying true to the event, using depositions and cell phone footage from the actual case to reconstruct the scene. All of their choices resulted in a tense, moving, and tragic climax that still maintains truth and naturalism. The camerawork’s raw. It’s real. It’s what makes it so tragic.
This goal for naturalism weaves throughout the entire movie. Most, if not all, of the choices Morrison made are in service of that naturalism that Coogler was going for. “I think the ultimate goal was to put the audience in Oscar’s shoes on the last day of his life,” Morrison remembers (Kreindler). By filming it as if it were a documentary, it makes Michael B. Jordan feel more real, making the tragedy at the end more devastating. They knew they wanted to shoot on film rather than digital and they wanted film with visible grain because it lent itself better to rawness and reality. Hesitant at first, Morrison shot on Super-16 instead of 35mm film. In exchange for a naturally deeper depth of field, Morrison gained a grainier texture and could use a smaller and lighter camera, allowing her to shoot handheld. She came to appreciate the deeper depth of field. It let the viewer explore Oscar’s environment and connect him to the community from which he would soon unwillingly depart.
This documentary-style approach has been used in many other films, more recently in The Two Popes. Combining stable, grand wides of the Catholic Church with imperfect handheld compositions and crash zooms, DP Cesar Charlone humanizes the previous and current Popes. He puts us right in the room with them, deconstructing the worldly, Godly atmosphere around the Popes and making them feel like old friends. With documentary-style cinematography, we can forget status and focus on who these characters really are, observing them as they exist in their environments. To be imperfect is to be human. Though, both Morrison and Charlone also make sure to sprinkle in moments of cinematic greatness.
When depicting the fabled greatness of a 19th-century outlaw, however, one might choose against naturalism. Roger Deakins shows us another way to film history as director of photography for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. With director Andrew Dominik, Deakins stays true to the Western genre long after the heyday of Westerns has passed. Mirroring the compositions in John Ford’s films, Deakins frames Jesse James within the camera frame as if he were a subject worthy of a painting. At a time when information traveled at the speed of a stagecoach, the tales of Jesse James were undoubtedly exaggerated, aggrandized to the point of novella hero. It’s only appropriate to reflect that status in film.
If viewed in daylight, the train used at the beginning of the film isn’t all that intimidating. It’s reminiscent of Thomas the Tank Engine, as Dominik put it (Pizzello and Oppenheimer). Deakins went to work lighting the train to give it the looming, ominous presence it now has in the final film. He secured a 5K PAR to the front of the train, acting as its headlight. The atmosphere, dense with smoke, envelops Jesse James as the train comes to a stop, and the gang rushes down the hill to scare the perfectly-lit passengers. It’s a classic Western robbery.
It’s also wildly inaccurate to the power of the lights that actually existed in the 1880s. If they tried to replicate that reality, though, nothing would show up on the film. In this case, Dominik and Deakins prioritized dramatization over reality. While the previous three films all have detailed and accurate sources about the events they depict, no such sources exist for Jesse James. This is a story about an infamous celebrity, one whom many knew about but few had met. Instead of trying to match a truth now lost to time, Dominik and Deakins opt to reflect the exaggeration.
Taking a page out of Conrad Hall’s book, Deakins also embraces happy accidents. There are two significant shots of reflection in the film: when Robert Ford aims his pistol at Jesse and when Jesse’s corpse is photographed. In both instances, Deakins found these reflections on the day and intensified the light to emphasize them. No matter how preplanned you might be, life in the moment can still offer gifts like these, so long as your eyes are open to them.
A film that finds itself in the middle of Deakins’s dramatic depiction of Jesse James and Walker’s true-to-life retelling of Robyn Davidson’s story is Ford v Ferrari. The story about one of the greatest moments in automotive racing history comes prepackaged with drama and excitement. DP Phedon Papamichael takes full advantage of the tension and exhilaration inherent in racing cars, but never strays too far from the truth. It’s a gripping film, and one with some “Phedonomenal” cinematography.
It’s obvious how crucial the role of the cinematographer is to filmmaking. Every single choice changes the way in which the audience experiences the story. And as you can see, there is an infinite number of choices that a director of photography can make. But the choices must always serve the story, so the question to ask is this: what choices deliver the greatest emotional impact? What choices will communicate the story in the way that the director wants to tell it? How do you take your skillset and adapt it to the requirements of the story? Tough questions to be sure, but these questions can drive lifelong careers. They have driven lifelong careers.
It’s why Rachel Morrison does it.
“That’s part of what I love about film and the arts — no two jobs are going to be the same. You never use exactly the same skill set.”
It’s why Conrad Hall did it.
“Cinematography is infinite in its possibilities…much more so than music or language.”
It’s why Mandy Walker does it.
“I always like my job to be something that people don’t notice brazenly — but rather, they notice it in an unconscious way — in that, they feel something.”
It’s why Roger Deakins does it.
“I like character films. I like photographing a human face. I find that more interesting than anything else, and that’s what I will continue to do.”
There’s great joy to be had in figuring out just where to put a camera. Just how to light a scene. Just how close you should dolly in or how far you should dolly out. All of those decisions help us feel the emotion of a movie that much more. They emphasize the story. And in the end, that’s all we are.
Storytellers.
Source List
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