American Cinematographer - January 1993 - 60

ibbean had been

captured in

Palma noticed several lOK's in

Di Palma looks at the

world and his work

director's vision and bring it to life.

might, with an eye for angles, struc¬

Antonioni, Woody Allen

ture, dimension, color and mood.
"Since the time I was a child, I was

and Vittorio De Sica

are

all creative

taskmasters, directors whose

projects are marked by a personal
stamp that defines their style, yet Di
Palma has always been able to
make artistic expressions of his
own. "I share the feelings of these
directors,"

De

Palma notes.

"Woody gives me maximum cre¬
ativity, the freedom to invent, in
both color and black & white."
Di Palma's work on Red
Desert and Blow Up intrigued Allen
20 years ago and inspired him to
call. Di Palma was interested, but

already booked to shoot Sidney
Lumet's The Appointment. Allen
and Di Palma didn't work together
until 10 years later, on Hannah and
Her Sisters. Di Palma read the script,
then met with Allen in New York.
"When we met, we both spoke dif¬
ferent languages. I spoke very little

English and he didn't speak Italian.
He just spoke "American," which
is very different from English. But
at the

same

time, I understood

Woody and he understood me. We
speak the universal language
of cinema. In just three hours, we
understood everything. Now after
eight years of working together, the
entire crew speaks my English."
When they work together,
Allen and Di Palma go over a script

both

while Di Palma makes notes. Then

they discuss possibilities, look at
locations and describe their sugges¬
tions and improvements. "Many
times it's not possible to plan when

as a

painter

always thinking in terms of compo¬
sition. The light and the qualities of
the colors in Rome were extraordi¬

nary. There were so many possibili¬
ties for imagery. I love New York
because it has the same possibili¬

ties, the

potential."

same

gave Di Palma wide landscapes
and a full palette with which to ex¬

periment. But Woody Allen's films,
which focus on human interaction,
offer the cinematographer fewer
chances to capture panoramic vis¬
tas and sweeping horizons. This
doesn't

mean

Allen's films

are

less

challenging, though. The director's
"simplicity" is deceptive, according
to Di Palma. Human nature be¬

kind of

landscape in
Allen's films, offering his cinema¬
tographer lighting possibilities as
vast as the range of human emo¬
comes

a

tions.
Di Palma calls

September a
cinematographer's film, even
though it lacks the exterior scenes
he loves. "I love shooting on loca¬
tion, because every day there is
change, emotion, light, rain," he
submits. "In the studio, it's always
the same."
When he does have to
work on a stage instead of a real
location, Di Palma likes to keep as
close to reality as possible. A night¬
club scene in Blow Up was slated to
be shot in

a real discotheque, but
days before the shoot the venue

problem. Language has never been
obstacle for Di Palma; he's shot

ings," he explains. "The light comes

on location," says
Di Palma. "You can't always plan
a sunset."
Communication is not a
an

Brazilian, Russian, English, Italian

down from

and American films. "Cinema is its

tion." A

language. It's not different for
each movie. I've had many experi¬
ences with
many films around the
world, yet I've only found one uni¬
versal language: cinema. All
own

unnatural direc¬

ceiling was prepared, and
Di Palma lit the nightclub scene
with small quartz lamps, an inven¬
tion of his that he calls "pinchers."
During the shoot, Antonioni and Di
Palma took

for Di Palma to break

means

through the limitations of an inte¬
rior shoot. September is the story of
a
group of people resolving rela¬
tionships at the end of a summer
together. He infused the drama
with colors, visual sensations that
a
backdrop against which
philosopher/director Allen at¬
tempts to fathom human nature.
Di Palma prefers to keep
his moves simple and get emotion
straight from the source. "I like to

have the

camera near me.

It's very

important to get the quality of emo¬
tion from the actors in the

scene.

Some directors like to crane down,
then go back up, which is all right
if you want to see someone walk¬

ing

on

the street from the point of

view of the roof." He remembers

doing

crane shots for films that
touched on the surreal: Antonioni's

L'Eclipse and Red Desert, and
Bertolucci's Tragedy of a Ridiculous
Man. But there's nothing surreal
about most Woody Allen pictures.
"Woody says that I give him new
possibilities with a moving cam¬
era," Di Palma adds. "Many cam¬
eramen don't like
moving the cam¬
era but I like it
very much. Actors
are free to move.
Why not the cam¬
era?"

Shadows and
two

crane

Fog did

use

shots, Di Palma's only

shots in

years. "It was
very important - not the move¬
ment, but the street view that we
crane

seven

got, which would have been im¬
possible without the crane. Many
people use crane shots and like
them, but the important thing is to
use

the

crane so

it isn't obvious."

But Shadows and

Fog, Di Palma
points out, wasn't based in reality
to begin with, so the the fact that the
crane move

wasn't realistic didn't

matter.

Each morning on the Shad¬
and Fog set, Di Palma and Allen
would look at the set together.

ows

break to visit the set

"Woody would ask, 'Carlo, what

Stanley Kubrick's 2001, which
was also
filming in London. Di

do you think?,' and then he'd leave
me alone. I would
prepare the light-

moviemakers understand it, just as
all musicians understand music.

of

American

January 1993

Cinematographer

an

a

spaceship scene and mentioned his
small quartz lamps to the crew,
who ended up buying 50 of them.
Color provides another

create

Antonioni's Red Desert

burned down. An identical interior
was built on a sound
stage but Di
Palma was dismayed to find that
the room had no ceiling. "I don't
like to work on sets without ceil¬

you're shooting

58

Artists understand their art."

Sardinia. The incident epitomized
Di Palma's ability to intuit the

a
American Cinematographer - January 1993

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 1993
