American Cinematographer - August 2013 - 20

Production Slate
Well-regarded
kindergarten
teacher Lucas
(Mads
Mikkelsen) is
accused of
molestation by
one of his pupils
in The Hunt,
shot by
Charlotte Bruus
Christensen.

Unreliable Charges
By Patricia Thomson

When Danish cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen
saw the first cut of The Hunt, she felt her photography was “very
small, in a way.” That was her intent: to create something subtle,
detailed and precise that would not call attention to itself. When the
jury at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival honored her with the Vulcan
Prize for Technical Artist, “they mentioned exactly that,” she notes.
“They said I got the prize for all these small things that we thought
would not be seen, but felt.”
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, The Hunt follows Lucas
(Mads Mikkelsen), a well-liked kindergarten teacher who is caught in
a maelstrom after one of his pupils falsely accuses him of child abuse.
Set in an isolated village in Denmark, the film starts with a scene of
male camaraderie: Lucas and some longtime friends go for a dip in a
lake on a brisk October day. Recently divorced, Lucas is buoyed by the
fact that his adolescent son wants to live with him, and by his pupils’
affection for him. Klara, the daughter of Lucas’ best friend, Theo
(Thomas Bo Larsen), is especially close, but after Lucas gently corrects
her way of showing affection, she lies to the school principal in a fit
of pique, using language she has heard older boys use.
The film cuts to November, tracing how Lucas becomes the
town pariah. By Christmas, the tensions have led to violence. Eventually, the town returns to normal, but it’s a new normal, reflecting a
20

August 2013

world in which adults can no longer roughhouse or hold a needy
child without trepidation. “The film describes a loss of innocence,”
says Vinterberg. “It starts with a bunch of naked adults jumping into
a lake; they’re all innocent and love each other. Then this pox
spreads and things are drawn into darkness, slowly — and so is the
season.”
In fact, the seasonal transition formed the cornerstone of the
film’s visual design, and the shift from warm autumnal colors to cold
winter hues carries great emotional weight. The warm and cool
exterior palettes are echoed by Christensen’s lighting and filtration
strategies. As the timeline approaches Christmas, the differing color
temperatures also isolate Lucas, who retreats to his cold, dark house,
excluded from the warm milieu of holiday festivities.
Vinterberg says the cinematography in Ingmar Bergman’s
Fanny and Alexander, shot by Sven Nykvist, ASC, was an important
touchstone. “There was something about the blue, the snow, the
bleakness and those warm little islands,” he says. He notes that he
and his collaborators also studied films shot by Néstor Almendros,
ASC, for “the soft way he used warm light”; films directed by
Michael Haneke, “for his direct, unsentimental way of treating evil”;
and The Deer Hunter, shot by Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC (AC Oct. ’78),
for its widescreen grandeur in the woods and feeling of a larger
world outside a small community. They looked at Vinterberg’s Festen
(Celebration), too, for its convivial dinner scenes.
“We wanted this film to be able to move into the fantasy of

American Cinematographer

American Cinematographer - August 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 2013