American Cinematographer - March 2009 - 83

Clubhouse News ASC Talents in Palm Springs ASC members John Toll and Vilmos Zsigmond were the guests of honor at the Palm Springs International Film Festival/Palm Springs Art Museum seminar “Talking Pictures: A Close-Up on Great Hollywood Cameramen” in January. Toll’s latest feature, Guillermo Arriaga’s The Burning Plain, was the festival’s closing-night film. In an interview with David Kaminsky, M.D., a former PSIFF vice chairman, Toll and Zsigmond discussed their respective approaches to the craft and screened clips from the World War II drama The Thin Red Line (1998), which brought Toll his second ASC Award and third Oscar nomination, and the Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter (1978), which brought Zsigmond his second Oscar nomination and helped cement his reputation as one of the leading cameramen of the American New Wave. “The Thin Red Line was a cinematographer’s dream — [director] Terry Malick is so visually articulate, and he wanted to tell this story primarily with images,” said Toll, who screened a clip showing the Americans’ attack on a Japanese encampment in the jungle. “Terry wanted to explore the idea of war as the real enemy, and the random nature of the violence was something we tried to convey visually.” Toll acknowledged that his early experiences as a camera assistant and operator on documentaries came in handy on Malick’s film, but he noted that he and the director were not interested in creating a vérité feel. “We didn’t want to use handheld to simulate a documentary sensibility, like so many films do today,” he said. “We went handheld for some scenes because Terry wanted me to be free to improvise [moves] within a sequence, to follow dialogue and really explore the emotional thread of the scene.” After screening the final scene in The Deer Hunter, wherein the friends at a soldier’s wake break into a spontaneous rendition of “God Bless America,” Zsigmond admitted he found the scene “corny” when he first read the script. “But [director] Michael Cimino said, ‘Just wait for the rehearsal, and see what the actors do with it.’ And he was right. For me, the key moment in this scene is when the woman comments on the weather … she says, ‘It’s so gray.’ That told me everything about how the scene should look and feel.” Both Toll and Zsigmond demurred when Kaminsky asked them to describe their respective styles. “I’m not sure I can characterize my ‘style’ so much as my approach,” said Toll. “Whenever I read a script, I’m constantly trying to visualize what the story should look like. What is the nature of the story, and how can we tell it with images?” Zsigmond concurred, adding, “I think the most difficult part of moviemaking is the beginning. Regardless of how much prep you do, I’ve found that the style of a picture starts to develop in the first or second week of the shoot — probably because I’ve worked with so many directors who are great improvisers. “We cinematographers don’t shoot ‘our’ movie,” he added. “We create the movie together with many contributing artists.” After the interview, James Chressanthis, ASC introduced a screening of his documentary about Zsigmond and the late Laszlo Kovacs, ASC, No Subtitles Necessary. Another ASC member, Dante Spinotti, was present at the festival on camera, in Eric Bricker’s documentary Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman, which chronicles the life and influence of the renowned architectural still photographer. In the movie, Spinotti notes that Shulman’s photography, particularly the famous Los Angeles shot “Case Study House #22,” signifi- cantly influenced his work with Michael Mann on Heat (1992). Recalling that his and Mann’s attempts to closely replicate the photo were unsuccessful, Spinotti sits down with Shulman and gets him to divulge how he got the shot. Visual Acoustics won the festival’s Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. — Rachael Bosley Rawlings Teaches Wounded Marines Richard M. Rawlings Jr., ASC is serving as a visiting faculty member at the Wounded Marine Training Center for Careers in Media in San Diego, Calif. Rawlings, whose recent credits include Desperate Housewives and Gilmore Girls, is teaching cinematography at the center, which enlists industry professionals to instruct and mentor wounded Marines so they can pursue careers in media and the arts. Founded by cinematographer Kevin Lombard and his wife, Judith Ann Paixao, the center graduated its first class last year. (Levie Isaacks, ASC wrote about the inaugural cinematography class in the May ’08 issue of AC.) For more information, visit www.woundedmarinecareers.org. Green, McAlpine Discuss “Art of Light” The UCLA Film & Television Archive’s “Art of Light” series recently spotlighted ASC Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Jack Green, ASC and ASC International Award honoree Donald McAlpine, ASC, ACS with screenings at the Hammer Museum. The archive screened Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992), shot by Green, and Bruce Beresford’s Breaker Morant (1980), shot by McAlpine, and both cinematographers discussed their work following the screenings. I American Cinematographer 83
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American Cinematographer - March 2009

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