Masters of Light. Dennis Schaefer
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the light of the place and the quality of the landscape. Canada is not the same as Durango, Mexico, you see.
On Kramer vs. Kramer, can you comment about your aesthetic or photographic approach to the film?
It’s a contemporary movie and it takes place in an Upper East Side apartment, upper-middle class; also there are scenes that take place in skyscrapers with long views of New York. We use restaurants and courthouses as locations too. It’s very banal, it has to do with things of today. So, in that way, the film looks more like Bed and Board or Chloe in the Afternoon, which are the other two contemporary movies I’ve made. It looks a little like The Man Who Loved Women too.
Normally when you make a film about a contemporary subject, people think you should not care too much about the visual side of it. Normally they are done more quickly and more carelessly. There is no set designer, no costumer; you just shoot things as they are. But, in this film, fortunately we have done things with time and research. Robert Benton wanted to come from Piero della Francesca, amazingly enough for a contemporary subject; but that was the painter we studied to begin this movie. We looked at a lot of frescoes and books.
As the film went on, I found that the objects in the film have no connection with Piero della Francesca; we had the colors and we tried to match the colors on the walls and clothes, etc. But, little by little, in the middle of the movie, I began to get interested in David Hockney. Then, just the other day, I was very happy to find out that David Hockney admires Piero della Francesca a lot and he actually considers himself a follower of his. So I was not that far off. I’ve been searching through David Hockney lately because he uses contemporary things like chairs, cactus in a pot, lampshades and windows; things that look like things that are in this movie. That’s my source of inspiration now.
But it’s done very carefully. I have time to do it and I’m never rushed.
By the way, just as a point of reference, the painters we studied for Goin’ South were Maxwell Parrish and Maynard Dixon. In Days of Heaven we used the photography of the period as is indicated in the credits. In Claire’s Knee, we used Gauguin; in Adele H. we used Victorian painting.
So you communicate a great deal through reference to the other visual arts?
Yes, I think using painting is very important because it gives a reference to the director, the set designer, the costume designer, etc. In The Marquis of O, for instance, we used German romantic painting. Sometimes you have movie references. For The Wild Child, our inspiration was Griffith and black-and-white movies of the past.
It’s always very useful to have a reference to give a style to the movie; otherwise the film would just go into so many directions.
What about contemporary American cinematographers? Whose work do you look at; whose work do you admire?
I think we’ve seen a great renewal in America in the last twenty years [in cinematography]. A tremendous renewal because they had come to a dead end. I admire very much Gordon Willis, of course; he’s a great artist. I admire Chapman (Michael), a very good disciple of Willis. Here on the West Coast, there’s Haskell Wexler, who worked a bit on Days of Heaven after I left because I had committed to do a film with Truffaut. Since I was committed to it before, it was Haskell who shot about two weeks of filming after I left. It worked out fabulously. Then of course, the Hungarians are very good too; Laszlo Kovaks and Vilmos Zsigmond are really fantastic. Adam Hollender is also a great cameraman; Alonzo is very good too. Also Butler is very good too and Conrad Hall. There are a lot of great cameramen here.
Can you comment on the way American directors work as opposed to their European counterparts?
The Americans use much more film; they use thousands of feet of film and get much more coverage. They cover everything from every possible angle; they do many more takes of a scene. There are many more scenes that are never used. In Europe—and when I say “in Europe,” my experience is very limited, I am always faithful to the directors I work with and that is Truffaut, Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder—anyway, they don’t shoot too much film. They don’t do much coverage. It only takes Rohmer eight days to edit his films. Eight days! All Rohmer does is, since there is no coverage at all, splice one sequence after another and so the film is almost done. So that the rough cut and the final cut are very similar. All they do is cut a little here and a little there. So that you can say the film is really all there in the rough cut. So when I say eight days, I mean eight days for the rough cut.
Whereas here, with Days of Heaven, it has been about three different movies; they edited it one way, then they reedited it again another way and then they cut scenes and added still other scenes. It’s totally different here. On Goin’ South, Jack Nicholson had three editors working simultaneously on the film. One would be editing the gunfight, one would be editing the love scene and one would be editing something else, all at the same time. We don’t do it that way and so our films are perhaps more personal and more individual. Which doesn’t mean that Malick or Nicholson or Monte Hellman aren’t individuals, they are. I admire them for their ability to do their own thing in spite of all the obstacles. It’s amazing. When you think of the past and the enormous pressure of the producers and studios and when you see that every John Ford picture had a signature, had a style, it’s just amazing. How did they do it?
What about the actors and actresses here? Do you think part of the reason for shooting a lot is on their account?
The American actors are much more energetic than the Europeans. They go through many hardships. In Days of Heaven, Richard Gere fell 15 times on an icy river for 15 takes without much protection; I really admire that. He did it himself and he never protested it at any time. Nicholson does the same thing too.
American directors shoot too much, I think. I don’t think it’s necessary, at least not to that extreme. Sometimes producers want them to do it because if you don’t shoot enough they think they will not have a good film.
But then again, the cheapest thing you have to work with is film; that’s your smallest expense on a film.
But then, on the other hand, you have a tremendous amount of film. And it takes more time for editing; you have too many choices, you have too many angles. With many of the films that I’ve seen in America, I have the impression that they’re always cutting for no reason; it’s just because they have another shot of it. The films have the tendency to all look alike because they all go through the same method of shooting. It comes out as if it were made by computers. A computer could actually make a movie; it could see how many camera positions you can have for the scene; ask the computer and it will tell you.
Then by having all these choices, the editors also chop up the film too much. You have to have a close-up here and an insert there, a long shot here, an establishing shot there and it becomes too mechanical. It becomes just a mechanism and it has no personality, the film has no style. I believe in limitations and discipline.
Possibly the Truffauts and the Rohmers are more secure in their visions; they know exactly how they want it?
I believe the director should know in advance and not afterwards on the editing table. He should edit his film in his head already. In Hollywood, that’s the way it used to be a long time ago. But of course all these things are theories; and some people with other theories might get a good film. Good films get made in every possible way and sometimes under great pressure.
We understand that the last film you made with Rohmer, Perceval, was quite different from your previous work. In what way?
The film was totally made in the studio and Rohmer did not want a realistic look at all. So that’s totally breaking with my tradition. And, I must say, at the beginning, I was totally lost. In the first two weeks, I had to do many retakes because it was really very bad and I didn’t know where I was going. I had to relearn everything again; because Rohmer wanted a look that was not realistic, not naturalistic. He wanted it purposely to look artificial. Having been a realist all my life, it was really quite hard. On the sound stage, we had a whole cyclorama with castles made of plywood, trees made with plastic, painted grass and backgrounds. It had to be reconstructed light. And also Rohmer did not want something that would