Tuesday, November 19, 1996
FILM:
A look into why great cinematography is such a rarity in the
American film industryCall me crazy, but it’s not Mel Gibson that
makes last weekend’s No. 1 box office draw "Ransom" a stand out
film. The script is good, though it ultimately betrays the film,
and the actors are all just fine. What struck me as unusual while
watching "Ransom" was how unique an experience it is to see a
Hollywood film, with all the hefty production values that moniker
intones, married to something even more rare than a superior
screenplay: good cinematography.
Director Ron Howard shrewdly enlisted Polish camera whiz Piotr
Sobocinski to handle the visuals for "Ransom," and the result is
that rare breed in American cinema where not only is the
cinematography aesthetically pleasing, it also tells something
specific about the story it’s attached to.
At this point, you may be wondering what the blue blazes I’m
talking about. You may be laboring under the unfortunate delusion
that American films look fine. And surely, American
cinematographers know the difference between the lens and the
viewfinder, and they turn out consistently competent work.
But the work is also consistently mediocre.
It strikes me as appalling to consider how a visual medium like
cinema is rarely considered for its visual aspects. As both artists
and viewers, our visual lexicon is terribly thin, and it’s this
collusion between an industry, an audience who settles for
mediocrity and camera folk who are content to turn in mediocre work
and collect their pay that maintains the lamentable status quo.
Take for example the fact that we celebrate rather mediocre work
time and again. Ask any hardworking cinematographer and he or she
will honestly admit that the best way to snag an Oscar is to shoot
a big Western or other such epic (or as a make-up artist friend
once put it, it’s easy turning Jeff Goldblum into the Fly, try
making Faye Dunaway look gorgeous in a dark room with harsh light).
I have grown very used to non-film people using "good
cinematography" to mean pretty vistas and stirring shots of amber
sunsets; not the work of a camera person who is adept with the use
of filters, lighting, movement and texture.
Take the last two Oscar winning feats of cinematography,
"Legends of the Fall" and "Braveheart." Both are the handiwork of
director of photography (or as we film insiders like to say, "DP")
John Toll. Surely, in his heart of hearts, Toll must know that
while he is no slouch, he is also profiting from the common
ignorance about cinematography and what good cinematography is.
Both films are modeled after classic Hollywood epics, and both
feature pretty shots of the great outdoors, but neither truly
contains cinematography that is memorable, pushes the envelope on
the craft, or does anything that future students of the craft will
study and learn from.
And then there’s television, once again the root of all evil and
a corrosive force in ruining the artistic taste of the masses.
Television (with some exceptions, like the X-Files) usually
features flat, boring cinematography. The medium is trying to
appeal to the widest audience (and lowest common denominator) so
the cinematography establishes a standard that nearly all shows
adhere to.
This TV photography has been the primary visual stimuli for a
harrowing number of generations now, and with every generation the
"General Hospital" aesthetic of camerawork buries itself a little
deeper in the hearts and eyes of the American viewer.
While TV took its cues from Old Hollywood, where many of the
films feature this bland approach to cinematography, one cannot
truly lay the blame for this state of affairs at Old Hollywood’s
feet. For it was Film Noir (a style of film which blended American
Hard-Boiled fiction and the cinematography of the German
Expressionists) a product of the Hollywood Studio System that first
educated me and legions of others as to the power and beauty of
cinematography possible simply by playing with light and shadows.
Greats like Hungarian-born John Alton, Gregg Toland and James Wong
Howe expanded the artform in Noir and non-Noir films alike.
And now almost all the great cinematographers working come not
from America but from Europe, where ironically American corporate
filmmaking has all but annihilated the native film industries.
Sure, there are a few American cinematographers who rank up there
with the best, like Oliver Stone’s DP Bob Richardson or Haskell
Wexler ("Mulholland Falls," "The Secret of Roan Inish"). But most
of the greats, people whose work have taught me what I know about
filmmaking, are from Europe, like Germany’s Robby Mueller ("Dead
Man"), Italy’s virtuoso Vittorio Storaro (Bernardo Bertolucci’s
long time partner), Sweden’s Sven Nykvist (who did drop-dead
phenomenal work with Ingmar Bergman) and Poland’s aforementioned
Sobocinski and Slawomir Idziak (both shot for the late great
Krzysztof Kieslowski).
All the aforementioned routinely do fabulous work, and it’s not
out of nationalistic indignation or nativist fear that I point out
that most of the best are from elsewhere. It simply concerns me
both as a student filmmaker and as a filmgoer, that we Americans,
who export our wares to the world, are becoming a nation of visual
illiterates. Not only is this bad for ourselves, greatly limiting
our ability to appreciate the artform, it also bodes poorly for the
artform itself; for how likely is it that a visual masterpiece can
be created or supported by a society with no taste or visual
sense?
So if you haven’t seen any or all of the films by the above
artists to whom I sing praise, do yourself a favor and seek them
out. Either rent them on video (a weak substitute for the big
screen) or seek out the few revival movie houses we have in town.
You owe it to yourself to see gorgeous cinematography (which
doesn’t include the vacuous slickery of music videos) that is as
smart as it is lovely. Once you’ve sampled the work of the best, I
guarantee you will settle no more.
Brandon Wilson is an aspiring writer-director in his third year
as a graduate student in the film department where he is famous for
having no talent whatsoever as a cinematographer.