American Cinematographer - January 2020 - 69

tt Attorney Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) begins his case
against chemical company DuPont in the legal thriller Dark
Waters. Cinematographer Edward Lachman, ASC notes that
the glass partitions in the foreground allow the character to
be obscured and seen at the same time, suggesting his
emotional isolation. p & t Director Todd Haynes and
Lachman shoot a sequence with Rob and his grandmother.
The candelabra above the table renders some warmth
against the fading exterior light.

study of a woman (Julianne Moore)
whose life is laid waste by the debilitating symptoms of an unexplainable
environmental illness.
In seeking a compelling cinematic language for Dark Waters, and
for Bilott's painfully protracted
struggle to expose the malfeasance of
an industry, Haynes found inspiration
in
whistleblower-themed
movies, particularly the thrillers that
director Alan J. Pakula and Gordon
Willis, ASC filmed in the 1970s -
stories, whether true as in All the
President's Men, or fictional as in The
Parallax View and Klute, that follow
their lead characters as they uncover
increasingly frightening levels of
corruption and modern-day horrors.
"All whistleblower films," Haynes
says, "are very much about a process
of discovery, whether they're about
journalists or lawyers - or, as in

Silkwood, about a woman who works
in a plutonium plant. It's not so much
about what is discovered, as it is
about the process of discovery and the
effect of that on the characters."
Dark Waters' narrative follows
Billot's journey through his procedural research, and as the lawyer
makes discoveries, Lachman points
out, the audience shares in them.
"One step leads to the next," he says,
"so we are putting the puzzle
together, even if we don't know
exactly where it's all leading."
The Taft law offices feature prominently throughout, and the production was able to shoot in the
downtown Cincinnati skyscraper
where the firm is still located - some
scenes in the actual Taft offices, and
others in a space several floors above
that were undergoing renovation
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which, Lachman reports, worked
perfectly for the production. A
nearby house was used for Rob and
Sarah's home, and an abandoned
farm in Colerain, Ohio served as
Wilbur's ill-fated West Virginia
homestead.
Haynes and Lachman had
initially wanted to shoot on film, as
they had done for all their previous
work (save for a couple of shots in
Wonderstruck,
which
were
photographed digitally for technical
reasons). "Todd is always interested
in the mechanisms that create the
world we're shooting in," Lachman
says. "This story is about contamination of chemicals and how they affect
our lives." The cinematographer
relates this idea to the inherent chemical aspects of a film-captured image,
which in turn leads to a discussion of
Lachman and Haynes' shared
aesthetic appreciation for the way
film negative creates colors, as
opposed to the work of digital
sensors.
"The depth of film grain, which
January 2020

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American Cinematographer - January 2020

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