Masters of Light. Dennis Schaefer

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СКАЧАТЬ Cuba, I chose to come to France because I very much liked the New Wave movies. For three years, I relied on my former profession, teaching language, and I survived. Then by chance, I met Rohmer. To make a long story short, I just happened to be on the set while he was shooting Paris Vu Par. Well, the cameraman left because he quarreled with Rohmer and they couldn’t get anyone, so I said, “I am a cameraman.” And they just tried me and they liked the rushes afterwards. It’s like the story of the chorus girl who replaces the star in the show who has twisted her ankle. Something like that.

      Barbet Schroeder was producing the film?

      Yes, and Rohmer was directing. I did some of the other sketches as well.

      You shot two or three of the sketches for that film then?

      Officially, I shot two episodes but I did camerawork and retakes on all the others. It was in 16mm, and hand-held; it was in that period in which we thought 16mm was going to be the thing. I had a lot of 16mm experience in Cuba plus my underground experience in New York. Later we abandoned 16mm because we realized that we had confused the issue; we had thought that it was a question of millimeters.

      What about the first feature that you shot with Rohmer, La Collectionneuse? Barbet Schroeder, who produced the film, said that he had a vivid memory of the shooting and that both you and he were influenced later by the style of that film. Can you explain that?

      That film is very important to me. When people ask me what is my favorite movie that I did, I always say La Collectionneuse. On that movie, there was already everything that I did later, in an embryo way, you know. But everything was there already. It’s a movie that I can’t forget. My first was also my best. It’s a landmark for me as well as Schroeder and Rohmer.

      It was intended to be done in 16mm; that was when we were giving up fighting for 16mm. We decided to make the film in 35mm but shoot it as if it were 16mm. Because what gives 16mm the look that we like in the movies—it wasn’t the millimeters, it was the way you made them. And of course, those things always go together; the fact that you had a small budget, you had so few lights, forced you to use natural sets and natural light. If you do all those things and just change one—go to 35mm—then you still keep this look and acquire some technical qualities which will make the film more interesting for the audience. So we shot the film in 35mm but we hardly had a crew. Barbet Schroeder was the producer and also, at the same time, a sort of gaffer, grip, superintendent; everything really. I was also loading the camera and doing some of the focusing myself. We did it like we would do a 16mm underground movie, only we were doing it in 35mm. We used the technique of not lighting; we waited for the right light. Like we are sitting in this room here; I like this light here the way it is now so why change it if I had to film it? And with this technique, we saw that the results were not only as interesting as in 16mm but even better because they were not degraded by the inferior quality of 16mm. Also the sensitivity and latitude of the film was greater so we could actually go further.

      Use less lights?

      We used less lights than we used in 16mm; we practically needed none. And we also realized that most technicians had been bullshitting, you know, and inventing uses for enormous amounts of light to justify their importance, to justify their salaries and to make themselves look like someone who knows a secret, when there is technically very little to know.

      That’s the New Wave?

      Yeah, but the first New Wave movies—I think that’s where Rohmer was great—they were not that conscious about those things. They were still a little naive, they were undergoing a transition. But I believe we went a further step, thanks to Rohmer.

      In general, from the New Wave directors that you’ve worked with, what do you find their attitude to be toward the camera work? How do they deal with it? Do they put a lot of emphasis on that?

      They do give a great deal of importance to the camerawork. But, at the same time, they don’t like it to overwhelm the movie, like it used to be. Because, in the past, the cameraman was like a dictator, you know. There was so much time for preparing the shot and so there practically was no time for the actors to rehearse or the moviemakers to make the movie. There was all the business of putting the lights up and it was a big ritual. I think we work faster now than they used to. And that comes also from the reduction of the shooting time in Europe.

      But even with all the business of working faster, the directors still wanted good cinematography?

      Oh sure, they certainly care a lot about it. The fact that they don’t have an army of technicians any more doesn’t mean that they don’t care about the photography. On the contrary, they dislike that glossy look, that artificial look that films have, especially old French films. The Americans never went that far; the French films of the fifties especially were unbearable in that regard. They were so artificial; actors could hardly move because they had a light on their eyes that was hitting them in a certain manner and the actors had to be there still on that spot and so they had to be acting as if they were mummies because they could not move. Instead of the lighting being for the actors, it was the actors existing for the lighting.

      You’ve done a number of pictures with Truffaut; could you describe what your working relationship is with him; what kind of input you have to him and vice versa; what emphasis he places on the camera.

      To begin with, Truffaut is one of the nicest persons to work with. He’s a man who believes, like Jean Renoir, that a good atmosphere during the shooting will be good for the film too. On the set, there’s no hysteria, there’s no screaming; everybody on the crew are like family. We are working together to make a movie. Everything goes very smoothly and it’s a work of cooperation. He’s a man who, amazingly for his enormous talent, listens to people who work with him. You would tell him something and he would take it into consideration; he might reject it but it’s not just the attitude of “I’m a genius and I don’t need any kind of help.” He listens to the people who work with him, whether it’s a set designer, assistant director or actor or even a grip. And he will use things that people bring to the movie and use them so the film looks like Truffaut nevertheless. That’s one of his great talents.

      The camera, for Truffaut, is much more mobile that it is with Rohmer. Rohmer likes for the characters to move in the frame as in The Marquis of O where they come close to the camera and they go back, back, back to the end of a corridor. And the camera just stays there and they go in and out of the frame. Truffaut, on the other hand, usually follows the actors; he’s always in a sort of medium shot position; that’s his favorite distance. He goes more often to close-ups in certain movies, especially on contemporary subjects. So he moves the camera but it’s hardly noticeable because it’s following the action so closely that it’s justified and it’s almost invisible. In this sense, I think he has learned a lot from the American cinema of the thirties. He admires very much Leo McCarey, Capra and all those people that have this almost invisible camera. That’s for light comedies. But when it comes to drama, then he would have camerawork that is more underlying, where the camera is almost like a character in the film.

      As in The Story of Adele H?

      Yes, or in The Green Room in which the camera does actually describe things and underline them. Big dolly shots, big camera movements come from the geography of the place (location) instead of in the editing. He is the master of the “plan-séquence.” That’s a French expression. It does not really indicate a master shot because a master shot implies you’re going to do close-ups and insert them on that master. His conception of a shot is such that it’s just the way it’s going to be and there’s no other way to fill in any close-ups. The camera will go from one character to another or will move to another room, all without a cut. He tries not to edit. If he can keep it all in one shot, he’s very happy.

      What sort of problems does that СКАЧАТЬ