By Antony Teofilo
Moving Cameras, Moving Stories
An Interview with Vilmos Zsigmond - Cinematographer
The sound of his speech calls to mind an aging raven with a gullet
full of iron gravel. Vilmos Zsigmond's voice grinds out in a rusty
Hungarian brogue which indicates that though he's been an American
nearly three decades, English is and always will be a distant
second language.
"We tried to learn some Hungarian cuss words so we could swear at him in his own language," laughs a crew member, "but we had to give up. Their insults just go on too long. It's too hard."
Neither a cryptic mother tongue nor weathered vocal chords pose any danger to Zsigmond's ability to tell stories. When it really counts, Vilmos Zsigmond speaks in the universal language of pictures.
Rising from his modest origins as a microfilm clerk and portrait photographer, Zsigmond has become one of the modern film world's most prominent cinematographers. Known for a silky smooth mode of visual narration that blossoms with vibrant color and subtle, natural light, Vilmos Zsigmond is now teaming up with one of a new generation of storytellers, Kevin Smith.
Watching them work, one can see that each must exercise patience with the other. Zsigmond's masterful eye for detail and precise lighting slow the pace of shooting considerably, which is a challenge for Smith, who is used to shooting at a fairly breakneck pace. Conversely, Zsigmond must occasionally acquiesce to Smith's requests for shot framing that might be less aesthetically pleasing, but more technically feasible when the final product is assembled in the editing room..
Through it all, there is a definite current of mutual respect that is producing a movie unlike any other in Smith's repertoire. With Smith's voluble dialogue and Zsigmond's vibrant visuals working in almost seamless concert, JERSEY GIRL is truly a sight to behold.
AntonyTeofilo: Your career spans three decades, while Kevin Smith is a fairly new filmmaker. What is your creative relationship with Mr. Smith like?
Vilmos Zsigmond: I think we have a very good relationship, based on the fact that Kevin, in the past, hasn't been too interested in the visual aspect of filmmaking. As a director, he's very interested in what he writes and directing the actors and how the story comes out. He never really used the visual dimension before. This is the first time, I think, that he realizes the potential of what cinematography can give him.
I really enjoy working with someone who appreciates good cinematography, and I think Kevin appreciates it very much.
AT: You have a reputation for creating some very grand images. Is it difficult to bring a relatively intimate story like JERSEY GIRL to the big screen?
VZ: All movies demand visual scope. After all, this is moviemaking. Even if the material is great, it's going to be projected in a movie theater. Audiences require certain visual aspects in a movie. If you're just doing photographed theater, it might be amusing, it might make money, but a lot of people might wonder why we made a movie out of it if [the movie] could have been a radio show or a great stage show. The audience notices things that are visually pleasing. I think movies are going to have to be more and more visual as time goes on.
Vilmos Zsigmond checks a low angle shot in Paulsboro High School's auditorium...
AT: After viewing a rough cut of the movie, I was struck by how much the camera moves around. Kevin Smith's films have, for the most part, been very stationary. JERSEY GIRL changes that.
VZ: It probably comes out that way, but I think this story requires a certain visual treatment. When you have a moving story like JERSEY GIRL, it gives you the opportunity to create some moving shots. I don't move the camera just to move it. I don't push in to a character until that's required by the story. A dolly move should mean something. It should emphasize the storyline. I don't think we have a lot of camera moves in this movie. I think sometimes we have some nice camera moves, and people will probably notice that, but [when we move the camera] it always relies on the story.
During one of JERSEY GIRL's particularly anxious moments at Paulsboro High School, a
shot is accomplished as the crew races the camera dolly down the hallway at a full run...
AT: When you read a script, do the words speak to you immediately in terms of how to translate them into pictures, or does it take you awhile to visualize what you're going to do with the camera?
VZ: It's hard to answer that, because when I read a script, it's the story that affects me. I'm not even thinking too much about the visual aspect of it, unless it's written in the script.
JERSEY GIRL wasn't very visual to me when I read it the first time. I needed to see the locations. I needed to see the actors. I'm very surprised in one way: this movie is becoming more visual than I ever thought it could be. What makes it more visual is not only the locations, and there are some great locations in the movie, but also that we have some great actors.
We have Jennifer Lopez, we have Liv Tyler, we have Ben Affleck. These are not beautiful in the sense of magazine covers or models. They are beautiful people because they are so alive, and they're wonderful actors in their faces and their body movements. I'm so happy just to watch what they're doing in this movie. It's so beautiful to see their faces in close-up because they can act...
AT: When did you find your voice as a cinematographer? Were you confident from the very beginning, or was it a long learning process?
VZ: It's a learning process. I was very lucky. I started to do movies in the late sixties and the early seventies. That was really the golden era of American filmmaking. That was when American directors suddenly realized that all that "old Hollywood" bullshit that was going on wasn't good for anyone anymore because audiences started to get turned on to European movies.
European films are so different than American films. I grew up on the Italian neo-realists. I learned so much from them, and then came the French new wave that created totally different pictures than the old stale Hollywood movies that were basically musicals and comedies. Very seldom was there a dramatic movie in Hollywood. There were some great movies of course, but generally, very few of them.
In the sixties and seventies, we had this era that all these new, young filmmakers wanted to create a totally new direction in movies. That's where I grew up as a hired hand, on movies like MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER, all the Robert Altman movies, and the Jerry Schatzberg movies like SCARECROW, and then Steven Spielberg. This was an era where we had a revolution in American filmmaking. Our movies looked totally different than any of the movies Hollywood had made. Our movies looked European, and then they began to look better than the European movies because these also had to be sold to the audience. Some of the European filmmakers didn't care about the audiences, they just made the movies for themselves, and occasionally, the audience would like it. Most of the time the audience was turned off by those films.
The American movies we made in those days were very successful, and they weren't even very risky. We didn't spend so much money on those movies. The maximum was two or three million dollars. If your film made ten million dollars at the box office, [the studio] was happy. You could make another movie. Today, it's totally different. We're in a terrible situation. A movie that makes two hundred million dollars is not considered a success, and that's a big problem.
AT: Speaking of revolutions in the film industry, we're on the cusp of yet another new era in the evolution of filmmaking: the digital age. Do you think digital filmmaking is a plausible way to make movies?
VZ: Everybody's talking about the revolution in digital photography. I don't think it's such a revolution. I think people are just finding new media to shoot on. Soon, we won't be shooting on film, maybe we'll be shooting on videotape, but then video tape will be outdated, and we'll be recording directly to laserdisc or DVD, or something we haven't discovered yet.
But film is really magnificent. At the moment, digital photography cannot come close to what film can do in terms of beauty and resolution and quality. Film is so much better. You don't have to listen to people like George Lucas who say digital is better than film. They're trying to kill film for no reason at all. If film is used properly, it doesn't cost that much more money than shooting on digital. On digital, people shoot ten or twenty times more than they would if they shoot film. I don't know what the savings are, really, and for me, the savings aren't what should be the important thing. What's important is the quality of the movie.
When you make a movie with big actors that costs thirty million dollars, does it really make that big of a difference to spend two or three hundred thousand dollars on film stock?
AT: Do you think it's important for young filmmakers to try to work with film, or should they embrace digital technology?
VZ: I think whenever they can, they should learn film. I don't think film is dead. If a filmmaker wants to go for the best quality, they should still learn how to shoot on film.
You've got it from a master, folks. Film isn't dead. Mr. Zsigmond
raises a valid point in that with digital, filmmakers will be
prone to doing more takes, which definitely costs more money than
a less liberal shooting schedule. Sure, the stock is cheaper. But
the costs of having a professional crew on for more hours in a day
stack up quickly. The film/digital battle will continue to
rage...
