American Cinematographer - March 2009 - (Page 19) Left: Two characters maneuver through the notorious Scampia housing project, where most of the film was shot. Below: A tailor (Salvatore Cantalupo) works with his Chinese associates. critical to put him in a position where he can feel free. [On Gomorrah], Matteo and I sought to find the right locations and create the right atmosphere so he could be free to move with the camera according to how he felt.” Garrone says his decisions about camera moves are intuitive. “When I shoot, it’s important for me to be on camera because I invent. Also, the actor doesn’t always make the same move, so every shot is different.” But on Gomorrah, Garrone was careful to ensure that camera moves and other visual elements never upstaged the story. “The raw material … was so visually powerful that I merely filmed it in as straightforward a way as possible, as if I were a passerby who happened to find myself there by chance,” he wrote in the press notes. “We wanted to shoot the movie like a reportage of war, like a documentary,” Garrone tells AC. “We think that’s close to the soul of the book, which is a kind of reportage and denouncement. We wanted to give the audience the feeling of being inside, seeing and smelling, so it was important to be very simple when shooting, to be invisible. When you try to show how good you are at moving the camera or framing, the audience immediately comes out of the movie. That, for me, was sometimes very difficult because my strong point is making the frame.” One touchstone was Roberto Rossellini’s Paisà, shot in 1946 in various parts of Italy. “The lesson from Rossellini was very important,” says Garrone. “Through those characters, he showed the situation of the country, but without judging. That, for me, was the most important thing: without judging. In Gomorrah, I leave the viewer the freedom to have his own opinion. The material is so strong it doesn’t need any comment; every time I tried to comment on what I was shooting, it became banal.” Like Paisà, Gomorrah follows multiple storylines. Focusing on five characters from the book, Garrone and his team of screenwriters (including Saviano) show various low-level drones who depend on the Camorra for their livelihoods: Don Ciro, who delivers money to families of imprisoned clan members; 13-year-old Totò, who American Cinematographer 19
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