Masters of Light. Dennis Schaefer
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shadows, they only had color and form; there was no direction of light and no perspective. So we had to have light but, at the same time, with no direction and it couldn’t be flat either. So I used arc light and it was really hard.
Also, you know, people have not been working in the studios lately, especially in Europe, so studio lighting has almost become some kind of lost art. It’s a secret that was buried with the people who used to do it; it hasn’t been passed on. Of course, they were working in black-and-white and we are working in color, so even if you research the old books, it doesn’t totally work the same.
So it was very exciting and anguishing too because I was afraid of really goofing it.
It was a big challenge?
Yes, that’s right. Unfortunately the film hasn’t been a big commercial success in America.
Would you say that it was your most difficult film?
Yes, I would say that this is the most difficult film I’ve made. Because even my first film, La Collectioneuse, like all first films, was very difficult but still there were points of reference. But Perceval, it was total invention.
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John Alonzo
“There’s no such thing as just flipping right into becoming a cameraman. For me it was the quality of what I could do plus being there at the right time and being tenacious about it.”
As much as anyone can be, John Alonzo is a student of film. As he grew up in Mexico and later Dallas, Texas, movies were his source of entertainment; he sometimes saw two or three films a day. Although, at the time, he wasn’t viewing films for the sake of cinematography, they certainly played a large part in forming cinematic ideas and concepts that he would later develop in his work.
He first came to Los Angeles to host a children’s show on local television which featured Señor Turtle, a character he had created for a show in Dallas. Señor Turtle found the going considerably tougher in Los Angeles. When the show was cancelled after a short run, Señor Turtle retired and Alonzo turned to acting. In between acting jobs, he earned a few extra dollars by doing publicity photos of other actors. Soon acting was taking a back seat to photography; Alonzo began to devote a great deal of his time to studying the cinematographer’s role. Among his favorite classic Hollywood cameramen were Walter Strenge, Floyd Crosby, Winton Hoch and James Wong Howe.
It was, in fact, the late Howe, or “The Chinaman” as Alonzo affectionately refers to him, who gave him his big break. Howe was shooting Seconds for John Frankenheimer and Hollywood production was in such an upswing that Howe was having trouble keeping a camera operator on the film. Alonzo, who had been shooting documentaries for David L. Wolper, was sent down to the set to help out, even though he didn’t have a union card. Both Howe and Frankenheimer were so impressed with his talent and enthusiasm that they went to bat for him in getting him into the union.
After that, Alonzo’s rise into the top echelon of American cinematographers was relatively rapid, culminating in his Academy Award nomination for his superb work on Chinatown in 1974. With such a calling card, he has been able to pick and choose from the many projects offered to him every year. Recently, he has taken up directing too, making his theatrical debut with FM, followed by several movies of the week for television. He has no plans, however, to abandon cinematography in favor of direction; in fact, on his television films he has skillfully handled both directing and cinematography chores.
I’d like to talk about some of the technical aspects of cinematography.
Fine. I’m not bored with technology. We’re in a marvelous period to be cinematographers, because of the new technology that keeps coming out. We look a thousand percent better to a producer than someone like Jimmy Wong Howe did. Yet they didn’t know what he went through. I mean, that man was running around with a 165-pound camera and here we run around with a 45-pound camera that you can manipulate and move around. Technology to me is not a boring subject. Anything you want to know I’ll tell you, if I can.
Harold and Maude: the film had a sort of dreamy, somber look to it, and I’m wondering how that look was arrived at, and finally how you achieved it?
Well, Hal Ashby really was the instigator of that, as most directors usually are. They instigate what kind of a look they want. I wish that I could do that picture now, with what I know now. And also with the certain reputation that I have now, I could have been even braver than when I did that picture; because that was only the third film that I’d ever shot. And when I met Hal Ashby, I was very impressed with him because he’d done a picture called The Landlord that I liked very much. Haskell Wexler got me the job. He recommended me to Hal. So there I was in the position of really wanting to be gutsy and do something dramatically different. By the same token, I didn’t want to ruin my friend’s recommendation. And I must say Hal was very patient with me, and so I went a little bit but not as far as I would have liked to go. All Hal told me was that all the sequences with Harold in his home should have a certain sort of sterility; sort of clear, clean, pure, no diffusion. The angles were to be more symmetrical; sort of meat and potatoes. And every time we ended up with Maude, it would have a slight craziness to it, just a little kookiness, a little tip (of the camera) up, a little tip down, a little diffusion. Also in the answer print, every time it was Harold and Maude, or Maude, it was a slightly warmer, toastier, softer look. And Harold and his mother and by himself, it was a slightly colder world, maybe a more realistic world to him. I wasn’t as brave then; I wish I could do that again.
Around that time you had, or I guess gained a reputation for working rather quickly and with great mobility. I think that’s one of the reasons why you went on Sounder. The producers thought that you could save some money.
Yes, that was a very inexpensive film. Yes, I do work very fast. I don’t think any picture I’ve shot has ever gone over schedule. But a lot of it is, to give the devil his due, not really so much how fast the cameraman is as what kind of communication and rapport he’s got with the director. If that director is not communicative enough, then you find a lot of very fast cameramen are slowed way down. Now, the quality I have for working fast may be because I came from the world of documentaries. In documentaries I did everything myself. We functioned rather quickly, we had to get in and out, not for economic reasons but for expediency. So the first picture I did was Bloody Mama with Roger Corman, who is a fast person himself. Well, we just communicated very easily. He would say, “Are you ready?” I’d say, “Yes, I’m ready.” Even if I wasn’t ready, I would design something that would work. I was thinking two steps ahead of him. So not knowing any better, I just continued to work that way. Plus, I have tried to keep the same crew all the way through, who help me tremendously. They almost read my mind and they know how we work and how we function.
Now Sounder was what I consider my breakthrough into the big time as far as directors go. Marty Ritt was the first big, established director I ever worked with.
On Sounder Marty said to me, “It must have a lyrical quality,” so you find that most good art is really terribly simple. The basis of good composition and good painting is simplicity itself. And Marty is such a good stager; he stages things so pretty. And I taught him a couple of things that I brought in from my world, and he taught me a great deal about directing. And he did that very fast, and very economically. The picture ended up costing only $860,000. So we did it fast but we had six or seven weeks; it wasn’t like a movie of the week in 18 days.
He had this wonderful joke he performed for us all the time. He had his little trailer that he would park somewhere out of the picture and he’d say, “How long will it take you?” I’d say, “I don’t know.” He’d say, “Well, just call me when you’re ready.” And we’d watch him and just before he’d get to the trailer, we’d say, “Marty, we’re ready.” And he’d turn around and look and say, “You’d better be ready.” We’d never let him get to his trailer.
If you had to analyze it, where do cameramen go wrong when they become