American Cinematographer - January 2010 - 20

Top: Dinner at the home of the town pastor (Burghart Klaussner). Middle: The town doctor (Rainer Bock) and his daughter (Roxane Duran). Bottom: White ribbons make Klara and Martin stand out in the children’s choir. costumes. “I wanted to retain all information, from the darkest, deepest black to the lightest white,” he says, adding that set designer Christoph Kanter and costume designer Moidele Bickel were “outstanding collaborators.” Haneke wanted to avoid any feeling of warmth or nostalgia, two qualities frequently associated with period pieces. Instead, the filmmakers opted for what Berger describes as “a kind of modern look,” although he readily concedes, “I 20 January 2010 don’t know how to explain ‘modern’ other than to say it’s not nostalgic.” In addition to examining photographs from the period, Berger studied Ingmar Bergman’s black-and-white collaborations with Sven Nykvist, ASC, as well as two more recent black-and-white films, The Man Who Wasn’t There (AC Oct. ’01), shot by Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, and Good Night, and Good Luck (AC Nov. ’05), shot by Robert Elswit, ASC. He found Unforgiven (shot by Jack Green, ASC) and 1900 American Cinematographer (shot by Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC) especially helpful in terms of lighting night exteriors with oil-based sources. Berger used the B&B Cine Reflect Lighting System, which he developed a decade ago in collaboration with lighting engineer Christian Bartenbach and the Bartenbach Light Research Center, for all of his movie lighting. CRLS relies on a powerful HMI source — Berger used eight 1.2K HMI Panibeams — and a series of aluminum reflectors that redirect the light to wherever it’s needed. The reflectors are adjustable, can be remotely controlled, and come in a variety of textures that give specific shape and quality to the light. No direct light ever hits the set. Even with a dimmer on the ballast that reduces the light by 50 percent, direct light usually is too strong, says Berger. “It’s very much like using different lamps. Some [of the reflectors] are hard, and some are soft; some have optical surfaces, and some don’t. Even multiple reflections are possible. I always use the same source, a parallel beamer.” With the exception of the pastor’s house, which was built onstage in Leipzig, the sets for The White Ribbon were built or found on location in Netzow, Germany. One of Berger’s favorite scenes finds the doctor’s children, Anna (Roxane Duran) and Rudi (Miljan Chatelain), in their kitchen, talking about death. “It was twilight, and we managed a very decent fill light inside the room from above — the CRLS was bouncing off the sound insulation in the ceiling. There were no lamps inside the room, only two small reflectors beside the camera creating a modest eyelight for Rudi and his backlight. We had another three reflectors outside the window sending light into the room. By combining the CRLS and natural daylight and changing the sheets of ND gel on the windows, we were able to convey the onset of twilight.” A disturbing sequence in the film shows Rudi wandering through his house in the middle of the night, calling out for his sister. He walks down the stairs, through an unlit salon and then into the dining room, where a single oil lamp is burning. Still in search of Anna, he goes back into the salon and then walks down a dark corridor toward the kitchen. The scene ends when Rudi opens a door into a brighter room and

American Cinematographer - January 2010

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