American Cinematographer - February 2009 - (Page 14)

Production Slate Financial Intrigue and a Flashy SLR Video Globe-trotting Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) draws a bead on his quarry. Banks as Bad Guys by Mark Hope-Jones Director Tom Tykwer read Eric Singer’s screenplay for The International seven or eight years ago, but it wasn’t until late 2007 that he was sufficiently happy with it to start filming. The long gestation period allowed careful finetuning of the story, which follows Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) as he attempts to uncover the corrupt practices of an international bank. It also meant, quite by chance, that production coincided with the current global financial crisis, which makes the film’s premise of banks as omnipotent villains even more resonant. “We were thinking of making a film reminiscent of the paranoia thrillers that Alan Pakula and Sydney Pollack made in the 1970s,” says 14 February 2009 Tykwer. “But instead of the Secret Service or CIA being the system within the system, we wanted to suggest it’s the institutions of world finance that seem to be the new governments that secretly rule our lives.” Tykwer collaborated on the film with cinematographer Frank Griebe, who has shot all of his pictures, most recently Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (AC Feb ’07). “The International almost seemed like a period film to us because when you see a film in the cinema now, the characters simply don’t talk the same way they do in movies like All the President’s Men [1976],” says Griebe. Other differences involve pacing and camerawork. “I always felt that if you want to make a film feel fast, you should make the story move fast rather than the camera,” says Tykwer. “A movie that is fast-paced because it contains one event happening after another is different from a movie that [feels] fast because of the intensity of the camerawork.” “The style of The International had to be very clear and precise because there are so many scenes and so much important dialogue,” says Griebe. “You have to hear what the characters are saying to follow the story, which is why we didn’t use too many visual gadgets. We only did handheld or Steadicam shots for action scenes; a lot of the time, we had the camera on a dolly or a tripod.” Tykwer was fascinated by the idea that images in the film should form part of the system Salinger is trying to fight. Rather than have the camera run with the character, he wanted Salinger The International photos by Jay Maidment, SMPSP, and Roland Schultz, courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2009

American Cinematographer - February 2009 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: Circus Production Slate: The International Reverte 2 Worlds in 3 Dimensions Dead Reckoning Embracing Anamorphic Citizen of the World Post Focus: Restoring Manhatta New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Peter Suschitzky

American Cinematographer - February 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.