American Cinematographer - February 2008 - (Page 52) A Cinematic Passport Right: In a scene from Zorba the Greek, Mavroantonis (Georges Foundas) prevents the widow (Irene Papas) from entering the church. Below: Papas takes center stage in Electra, whose austere, blackand-white visuals made it one of Lassally’s favorites. Honey, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Tom Jones. A Taste of Honey was the first British feature made for a major distributor to be shot entirely on location. It was also one of the first films to use three different types of film stock, including one previously considered suitable only for newsreels and documentaries. “For A Taste of Honey, Tony wanted an all-location film,” recalls the cinematographer. “So many films are made on location today that it is hard to remember that the idea was once very difficult to sell to the financiers — they were afraid a lack of sunlight would delay the shooting interminably! It was impossible to convince them that for greater realism, it was actually desirable to shoot exteriors without the sun. As for my intention to use three film stocks, there was considerable opposition from the laboratory, but it proved entirely successful. I did the same thing a few years later on Zorba.” Winning an Oscar for Zorba led to many offers from Hollywood. “I got my offers from major American directors, including Otto Preminger and Stanley Donen, but I turned them down because I didn’t like the scripts,” says Lassally. “It can be dangerous to aspire to bigger films. I found the bigger they were, the less likely they were to be better. To this day, I’m more interested in the work of Jim Jarmusch and John Sayles. Most mainstream films are made for people aged 7 to 17. I have nothing against making pictures for teenagers, but why only for teenagers? It’s regrettable, because there is a huge worldwide audience out there that has stopped going to the cinema.” Lassally continued to take on documentary work, including The Greeks (1967) and the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, as well as features such as Joanna (1968). In the early 1970s, he began a creative association with Merchant-Ivory 52 February 2008
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