Masters of Light. Dennis Schaefer

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 style of shooting present to you?

      Well it does present some problems and some advantages. One of the problems is focus, for instance. When the camera is moving all the time, it is quite difficult for the focus puller; he has to keep following and keep the correct distance. Also it presents a problem for the camera operator, which is me, because in Europe I do operate the camera. At every moment in every camera movement, there has to be a composition that looks good. So it’s like making a thousand compositions in a very short period of time. On the other hand, you have an advantage in that you have no problem about matching. When you’re editing and you’re going from one shot to another, you have to make sure that the eyelines are right, that the lighting is the same for every shot of the sequence. When you do a “plan-sequence,” it takes a long time to prepare; you might do one a day, but you save time in the long run too.

      The shot may make up several minutes of the finished film.

      Well, in the editing of the film, there is less work to do because the whole thing is preedited. So you work the whole day and you only do one shot, but you save all the time in the editing later.

      Monte Hellman whom you worked with on Cockfighter said that you were fast; that it was one of the first things that came to his mind about you.

      Good, I’m glad he said that. I don’t boast about being good but I boast about being fast.

      He said, “Of course he’s good; you’ve seen his films, but the thing you don’t know is that he’s also very, very fast.”

      The reason being that I light very little. For a cameraman, most of the time is lost in lighting. Well, very often I go to a place and I realize that it is very nicely lit as it is. So what we do is we choreograph the actors in relationship to the existing situation and it’s easier that way. I think that by spending too much time in lighting, you end up being mannerist. And that’s something I learned from a short experience that I had with Roger Corman. Right after I made La Collectionneuse, we made a film in Europe that was produced and codirected by Corman; Daniel Haller was the other director. It was called The Wild Racers. It was an insignificant movie. But the importance of that experience was we learned to work very fast. It’s a twofold area; we realized that because you are faster, you are not necessarily worse in cinema; and because you take a long time to prepare something, it’s not necessarily going to be better. With every shot you take time somehow; some shots you take longer than with others. But, on the whole, you just have to go ahead and shoot and follow your intuition. Sometimes if you think too much you sort of lose the intuition and the natural flow.

      

      But still you get the wonderful compositions; how do you achieve such quality and still work with such economy? It does seem like a contradiction.

      If it is so, I guess it also has to do with the fact that