American Cinematographer - October 2014 - 73

The Parallax View photo from the Alan Pakula Collection at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library, courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Willis trains a new crewmember while
shooting The Parallax View. In general,
though, he didn't like a lot of monkey
business on set.

After all, it's a movie, not a radio show.
Most of the actors I've worked
with have been very nice and very cooperative. There's a whole school of actors
who know what movies are; they know
that movies are done in cuts, and they
know that if it doesn't work in the
camera, then it doesn't work. What a
given actor thinks within his or her head
is not necessarily what will work on the
screen. Paul Newman has a great saying
about that: 'Feels good, looks bad' - or,
conversely, 'Feels bad, looks good.' He
understands the difference between his
own perception of the scene and the
'camera reality.' If the scene doesn't go
through that hole and onto the film in
the right way, then it's a waste of time -
no matter how good the acting is. I
might add that there are some actors
and directors who do not grasp this
concept.
How do you deal with an actor's
sensitivity about his or her appearance
in a shot? After all, it's their face that's
going to be blown up to huge proportions on a giant screen that reveals
every blemish.
Willis: I do bear that in mind,
and I can appreciate the position they're
in. The crew on a film has all of this gear
to help them out, but actors only have
one thing to rely upon - themselves.

That's what they're selling. I give as
much thought as I can to making sure
that an actor or actress looks good, but I
also try to make sure that they have
visual support in the scene. However,
you sometimes have to compromise in
order to make a scene work; everyone
can't always look spectacular.
Do you have different rules or
philosophies about the vanity issue?
Willis: I handle it picture by
picture and shot by shot, but I'm
certainly not out to assassinate anybody
onscreen. I do give a lot of thought to an
actor's appearance, even though I've
been accused of not doing so. It's true
that I don't constantly romance everybody. Pretty women ought to look
pretty if it's appropriate for the narrative,
but you have to do it without undercutting the movie. You don't want to be
doing one scene with an actress where
she looks like the Virgin Mary, and then
shoot the rest of her scenes like a docudrama. Then there's the type of thing
you see in some older films, where you
have a gauzy shot of an actress, and then
you cut to the male actor, who looks as
if he's in a completely different movie.
The trick is to make everybody look the
way they're supposed to look within the
given narrative.
Some actresses look great in any
light, and that always makes me feel
good because I don't have to take an
inordinate amount of time figuring out
my approach to them. I can just put the
light where it's appropriate for the
scene, knowing that the person will look
wonderful no matter what I do. With
others, I'll have to work things out a bit
more. I've certainly made some mistakes
over the years, but that's part of the
learning process.
By the way, it's not only the
women who are concerned with the way
they look. Some of the men are just as
bad - probably worse.
I'm sure it's not possible to make
everyone happy.
Willis: That's right. You can't be
all things to all men. Somewhere along
the line, someone's going to hate you!

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American Cinematographer - October 2014

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