American Cinematographer - March 2017 - 48

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Spirit Awards Salute Cinematography
the adult Chiron (Trevante Rhodes)
and Kevin (André Holland). "It's a
scene that doesn't necessarily have the
most stylized camerawork," Laxton
explains, "but there's a precision to it in
the way that the story builds. We start
with dolly shots that are wider and
create a sort of tension, but by the end
of the scene we're slightly zooming in
on telephoto lenses, very close to the
eye lines of both characters as they start
to connect after not seeing each other
for a number of years. All of that was
planned and executed in a way that,
when I watch it now, I'm very proud
of."

Right:
Cinematographer
Lol Crawley, BSC
(far right) lines up
a shot for The
Childhood of a
Leader. Below:
Prescott (Tom
Sweet), pictured
with his teacher
(Stacy Martin),
learns to
manipulate adults
during his
childhood in postWorld War I
France; he grows
up to be a
horrifying dictator.

The Childhood of a Leader
Director: Brady Corbet
Cinematographer:
Lol Crawley, BSC

pole films like the Star Wars and Star
Trek movies, and my assumption is that
audiences make those associations as
well, even if it's unconscious. So the idea
was that they would interpret the small,
nuanced experiences in Moonlight as
ones of epic importance if we presented
them in that format."
Perhaps the scene that most
encapsulates Laxton's attempt to merge
the intimate and the epic is the one in
which lead character Chiron (played in
this time period by Ashton Sanders) has
his first sexual encounter with his friend
Kevin ( Jharrel Jerome) on a moonlit
beach - a scene that Laxton considered to be one of his most challenging.
"As a cinematographer, I find that
nighttime scenes that are supposed to
be lit by the moon are always difficult,"
48

March 2017

he notes. "You have to talk with directors and ask, 'How does moonlight
really appear in your mind? What does
a nighttime exterior look like to you?'"
For Moonlight's beach scene, Laxton
and Jenkins decided on "a cool, soft
ambient vibe that was a little dreamlike,
and that would emphasize the quiet
isolation of this moment between two
characters. When you look out past
them, you can't actually see the water;
we got the effect with a large soft box
we built, filled with dimmable LED
tubes called FauxFlos [made by
LiteGear] that gave us the softness we
were looking for."
Laxton says that in many ways
the moments he's happiest with in
Moonlight are the simplest ones, such as
a climactic reunion in a diner between
American Cinematographer

Inspired by both a short story by
Jean-Paul Sartre and a novel by John
Fowles, The Childhood of a Leader is a
disturbing yet elegant character study of
a young boy in post-World War I
France, who grows up to be a horrifying
dictator. The combination of historical
sweep and intimacy appealed to cinematographer Lol Crawley, BSC, who
responded to both aspects of the piece.
"It was apparent from the first
reading of the script," he says, "that on
the surface the movie was exploring a
specific period of 20th-century history,
a new understanding of Europe at the
close of the first World War, and the
political and social environment in
which the rise of fascism then takes
hold. But the script was also a much
more direct and intimate examination
of a complicated family dynamic and a
child's response to either his innate
sensibility or [his] environment, and
how this forms his personality. The
brooding, dark pulse of this development motivated the darkly illuminated
interiors of the house - where light
rarely penetrates - as well as the slow,
creeping dolly moves and extended
choreographed Steadicam sequences
through the family home."
Crawley shot 3-perf 35mm film
American Cinematographer - March 2017

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