American Cinematographer - January 1993 - 38

about 140 films. With two Acad¬

emy

Award winners (Fanny and

Alexander, Cries and Whispers) and a
third Oscar-nominated effort (The
Unbearable Lightness of Being) head¬
ing the list, his credits read like a
film class syllabus. Highlights in¬
clude The Magic Flute, Scenes From
a
Marriage, Face to Face, Persona, The
Tenant, The Serpent's Egg, Autumn
Sonata, Through a Glass Darkly, From
the Life of the Marionettes, The Post¬
man
Always Rings Twice, Cannery
Row, Star 80, Agnes of God, Another
Woman, New York Stories (Oedipus

Wrecks), and Crimes and Misdemean¬
ors.

Despite his experience,
Nykvist found himself struggling
to resolve the tension between his

obsession with

moody, indirect
lighting and the harder, more con¬
trasty look he felt was necessary for
Chaplin.
"In these

Above:

Douglas

Fairbanks (Kevin

Kline,

on upper

steps) entertains
party guests by
demonstrating
his prowess at

swordplay.
Nykvist reserved
special praise
for Academy
Award-winning
production
designer Stuart
Craig, who built

bare, sudden, dark, springlike, fall¬

ing, straight, slanting, sensual, sub¬
dued, limited, poisonous, calming,
pale light."
The light in this long,

sets with

lighting

tors are to stroll into the scene. Since

considerations

the historic location must not be

in mind.

Right:
Basking in a
glamorous glow,

damaged, nearly everything is

Milla Jovovich

sion is that of

power

first wife.

indirect

on

a

metal and chrome

station.
Nykvist finds himself re¬
luctantly asking the crew to leave

attention to the

shadows, because this is not that

faces, with lens

choice and so on, which is the kind
of photography I prefer."
For the exterior day

the room while he and the electri¬
cians concentrate on lighting the

kind of picture,"

set. Once he's

every picture is important to me,
but sometimes I feel very bad, and
I ask myself, 'Why do we have so
much light? That is not your own

Eastman 5247, while interiors re¬

style, and

it!' The
moody
lighting just would not work. But in
the beginning it was difficult."
Nykvist is fighting in¬

pleased Nykvist, who was skepti¬
cal at first. "In the beginning, a year
ago, I disliked the 96, because it re¬

stincts honed

dark clothes. But now I like it - it's

happy with the room,

the actors, stand-ins and the rest of
the crew return and further adjust¬
ments are made.
The surfeit of equipment is
the result of Nykvist's adherence to
that

oft-repeated adage: a cinema¬
tographer must adapt his style to
the picture.
It's not

have to have

36

I had so many cards and
lighting. But generally on
this picture I have been experiment¬
ing with creating very strong con¬
trasts. This picture covers so much
time and so many different eras
that it has presented many interest¬
ing possibilities for a cinematogra¬
pher. We have paid especially close
reasons

C-stands, and the overall impres¬

portrays Mildred
Harris, Chaplin's

the ceil¬

cause the actors were dressed in
white and the walls were dark
woodwork. I had to make the light
as soft as
possible, because I already
had the contrast in their clothes and
in the walls. That was one of the

three-sectioned hall does not seem
to be that of Nykvist, who is known
for a spare, simple and delicate ap¬

proach. This set is a riot of lights -
units crowd the room, flags and
reflectors compete for space, and
the only open spots off-camera are
small trails through which the ac¬

rooms

ings are very low, and that made it
almost impossible to place the
lights. The scenes at [the mansion]
were
among the most difficult be¬

always

easy.

"I

he says in his deep,
accented voice. "To change style for

answer

you don't like
is of course that

over a

depth of focus, and I

ematography,

just can't just work with the dark

cludes, by his

American

January 1993

Cinematographer

lifetime of cin-

a career that in¬
own estimation,

scenes,

Nykvist usually used

quiring

more sensitivity were re¬
corded on 5296. Slight adjustments
in the newer emulsion have

sulted in too much contrast, espe¬
cially if you had a light face and
much better."

Nykvist's preparations for
American Cinematographer - January 1993

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