American Cinematographer - July 2020 - 37

larger. Why don't we start with a
normal film camera with the senator
in D.C., but from the moment he takes
the plane to L.A. and starts campaigning, we shoot everything with
Steadicam?' I proposed this idea to
Warren, and he liked it. So 70 percent
of the film was with two Steadicams,
and in one scene we used three of
them.
"'Plus,' I said, 'we can take it
one step further: This man wants to
commit suicide so his daughter can
get his insurance policy. Let's start it
in D.C. with an almost black-andwhite palette - with no emotion.
When he arrives in L.A., in the first
minutes with the black community, he
throws away his prepared speech and
he starts to tell the truth - and he
loves it. In each political and personal
encounter, I gave him, step by step,
the whole color spectrum for his journey - red, orange, yellow, et cetera -
ending with his shooting, when he is
lit with one strong white light from
the helicopter."
Vittorio Storaro has been a cinematographer for 50 years. When
younger cinematographers ask him
for advice, he tells them about his
beginnings. "Franco Rossi was the
director of my first film as a cinematographer, Youthful, Youthful
[Giovinezza, Giovinezza; 1969], when I
was only 28 years old. One day
during a screen test, while I was
trying a lighting style for the concept
of the movie, he asked for a light in
front of a character, to better see his
face. I said he could have the light, but
I would leave because he didn't need
me on set. He needed a gaffer, not a
cinematographer. Rossi backed down.
He confirmed that he liked what I was
doing - he was only nervous because
he couldn't find a proper actor for the
part ... Say no if you cannot get what
you want, or if you can't say no, find
a way to convince the director. When
you know theories of color and what
light means, nobody in front of a
monitor can tell you that 'this is

On the set of Tango, Storaro and director Carlos Saura share a moment.

wrong' or 'this is too bright.' No, it is
bright for a reason! But if you don't
have an idea, you cannot defend
yourself - you need to have a visual
concept and know the meaning of
light and colors."
There have been other directors
- like Carlos Saura, from Spain, with
whom he made films on Flamenco,
Tango, the painter Goya, and Mozart.
"Saura does not explain his movie
through the story," Storaro says. "He
likes to present his ideas with his own
drawings." When the cinematographer first met him, the director
described his film with color-pencil
drawings that he would sketch while
he was talking. Woody Allen is the
opposite - he is driven by the writing. Starting with Café Society (2016),
he and Storaro have made three films
together, with a fourth finished but
not yet released. "Some cinematograwww.ascmag.com

phers say Woody is not a visual
person. But if you find the link with
the story, you can do anything."
For the past half-century,
Storaro has sought to overlay the
vision of his directors with his own
visual ideas, and he does it with his
uniquely charming mixture of selfconfidence and deference. The results
have been a series of stunning collaborations that deserve to be saved for
2,000 years.
"Unlike writers, painters and
philosophers who work on their
own," Storaro says, "cinema is the
work of multiple minds - and like an
orchestra, we can do nothing without
a conductor, and that is the director. I
don't like to be called the director of
photography - I hate it. You can only
have one director. I am a cinematographer."
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July 2020

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