American Cinematographer - July 2009 - 36

Impressionistic Cinema I wanted very, very soft light, as though it’s filtered through time, like a hazy memory. The light was often bounced or going through two layers of diffusion, and it was always wrapping around.” Khondji combined and varied lighting, lenses, film stocks and processing to modulate the picture’s subdued look, which he developed in concert with production designer Alan MacDonald and costume designer Consolata Boyle. With few exceptions, the soft lighting of the interiors has a limited range of tonal values from dark gray to muted whites. Khondji shot principally with Cooke anamorphic prime lenses, which he chose in part for their rendering of faces, and for their softness. He opted for Fuji negatives, using mainly Eterna 250T 8553, which he sometimes pull-processed for additional softness. He used Eterna 400T 8583 when he wanted to reduce the contrast in day exteriors or heavy-backlight situations, and occasionally used Eterna 500T 8573, which he sometimes pullprocessed for additional softness. 1st AC Vincent Gallot tested three sets of anamorphic lenses provided by Panavision Alga Techno in Paris: Technovision/Cooke Classic, Cooke Xtal Express and Kowa. Gallot laughs as he recalls telling Khondji about the loss of definition when the lenses were wide open. “Darius said, ‘That’s what I want.’ That’s when I realized it was all about the imperfections. I was trying to find matching lenses, but Darius actually wanted to have different looks.” Khondji ended up using a mix of lenses but favored the Classics, which, he notes, are steeped in cinema history, housing 40-yearold glass that was used by Italian directors Visconti and Antonioni in their later films. Frears readily accepted Khondji’s suggestion to shoot in the anamorphic format. “I’m quite inexperienced with it, but when I Above: Léa and Chéri enjoy another happy morning together. Below: Chéri and his young bride, Edmee (Felicity Jones), pose for a wedding photo with guests. Both of these shots are unit photography. eymoon and returning to dissatisfying married life, and Léa trying to banish her sorrow with a young suitor in Biarritz. When Léa returns to Paris, it looks as though she and Chéri might renew their relationship, but Chéri cannot hide his newfound sensitivity about their age difference. Frears previously worked with Pfeiffer and Chéri screenwriter Christopher Hampton on Dangerous Liaisons (shot by Philippe Rousselot, ASC, AFC; AC May ’89), and although that film and Chéri are both period love stories that play out in opulent settings, Frears succinctly differentiates the two: “Liaisons is a melodrama; Chéri isn’t. Colette was an impressionist.” He describes choosing Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC for Chéri as “pure instinct.” The challenge of filming this story, he continues, lay in finding the right nuances of lightness and gravitas. “A lot of the film has to do with tone because it deals with someone who is frivolous and, as it were, tragic underneath. I was constantly trying to get the tone right.” Explaining Chéri’s richly textured look, Khondji says the idea “was to have an impressionistic touch. I didn’t want the image to be too sharp or the light to be obvious. 36 July 2009

American Cinematographer - July 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 2009