American Cinematographer - January 2013 - 22

Director of photography Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC (center) and director Michael Haneke (third from right) confer with their collaborators on the set.

the idea of shooting fairly open with the S5s during my tests. I like the S5s because you can open them up, and they’re very beautiful between T1.3 and T2. Their lack of depth-of-field makes the image very beautiful and fragile. It’s almost like shooting with a large-format negative. Part of the film’s sobriety comes from its limited focal lengths. What focal length did you use most often? Khondji: 35mm. Robert Bresson shot everything with the 40mm. Michael Haneke shoots everything with the 35mm, which isn’t available in the S5s yet. Almost the entire film takes place in the apartment, a set built on a soundstage. What was your lighting approach? Khondji: Michael created a detailed lighting framework, which he started by himself and we then refined together. In defining the orientation of the apartment, we decided the windows of the bedroom and living room would face north so that there would be no direct sunlight. Those rooms are lit by the bounce off a big building across the street that is visible through the windows. The kitchen is the only place where sunlight enters directly, in the morning. What’s more, it’s never the same lighting from scene to scene. There are sunny days, cloudy days, rainy days and so on. We followed Michael’s directions like a musical score, continuously changing the lighting according to the moment in the day, the weather and the season. Because we knew everything in advance, we preset the lighting settings ahead of time, and we could determine the proportion of daylight to
22 January 2013

practicals. We had everything on dimmers to define the light intensity. I wanted the lighting to be very true. I wanted you to feel the light coming in from the outside, and for the light to be very spatial, to really be part of the décor, just like the colors of the walls. Many people have told me they can’t really tell it’s a soundstage, not a location. What was your lighting setup? Khondji: All the fixtures were tungsten. For daylight I wanted very big sources, so as to light the entire window. We put 24Ks with heavily diffused Chimeras 5 or 6 meters [16'-20'] away from the windows, shining directly through them, and we hung sheer curtains on the windows that also diffused the light. Above each window we installed 4-by-4 Kino Flos with diffusion similar to tracing paper; these were skirted and channeled to extend the window light inside. Underneath each window outside were soft lights shooting up, because daylight does that: it doesn’t just come from above, it also [bounces] up from the ground and lights up the window and the window edges. When the street windows were in shot, we lit the greenscreen outside. [Visualeffects supervisor] Julien Meesters from Mikros Image did a wonderful job of [comping in] street footage behind the sheers. Did you have any lighting above the set? Khondji: All the rooms were lit from above with space lights gelled with ½ CTB and going through very thick, unbleached muslin. These top sources were played very, very low. Depending on the scene and the moment of the day or evening, they had almost no impact, or a little more. They
American Cinematographer

could provide fill to offset the contrast from the window light. The big vestibule and the little hallway leading to the kitchen also had toplight, but it was much more tungstenbalanced so that when the practicals are on, there is more fill coming down from the ceiling. But I found that the toplight could quickly become fake looking, so I dimmed the ceiling lighting a lot. There are few close-ups in the film, but you present the characters’ faces beautifully with a very natural look. An example is the kitchen-table scene in which Anne has her first stroke. Khondji: That scene was shot with two cameras, so it was very complicated because I had to light the two actors and the two backgrounds at the same time in a very tight spot. The only source of light was through the window. The key on each actor was provided by a 10K, and it was more heavily diffused on him than on her. Tell us about the DI. Khondji: We actually did two passes. I did the first with [colorist] Didier Lefouest at Digimage, with very specific notes from Michael, and Michael did the second in Austria. He wanted to see my version and then do his own because he is so meticulous. We graded in 4K, and I must say that the 4K DCP we saw at Cannes was much more beautiful than the 2K DCP I saw afterwards. There really is a big difference. For me, there was something very musical about this film. The lighting variations felt like a musical score that incorporated the time of day, the weather and the season. I felt like a violinist working with a very, very good orchestra conductor. It’s true that I had less freedom than I’ve had with other directors, but it was a fascinating experience nevertheless. You know, I would have loved to have had the opportunity to work with Bresson and Bergman, and working with Michael Haneke on a film like this felt like the same level of filmmaking. He has the same rigor and desire for truth.

TECHNICAL SPECS
1.85:1 Digital Capture Arri Alexa Cooke S4, S5

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American Cinematographer - January 2013

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