American Cinematographer - March 1993 - 34

Neyman also attempted to

tant to

recreate what it must have been like

source.

Right: Neyman
tried to capture
the turbulent
feel of the

for Marina to be in the confined

space of a small apartment with her
children and the often hot-headed
Oswald. Marina's assessment of
Oswald was that he was at best a

events that

followed in the
wake of
President

Kennedy's
assassination.

dreamer, but as she grew to know

Right below:

him better, she could

finally see that
there was something terribly askew

Oswald is
escorted to his

in his personality and way of think¬

doom.

ing.
NBC executives had

some

about shooting large parts
of the film in cinema verite style,
but lighting tests helped to reassure

every

light with

a

He wanted it to look natu¬
ral. In a few locations, he relied al¬
most

entirely on practical lights,
augmenting them just slightly.
More typically, he lit interiors with
soft bounce light.
Neyman used ambient
bounce light coming off walls and
other surfaces for fill, and de¬

pended on the latitude of the film
to dig details out of the shadows.
After testing, Neyman decided to
the 200T Eastman EXR 5293
film for almost all interiors and all

concerns

use

them. Neyman maintained a con¬
trast ratio that produced a televi¬

daylight exteriors. It gave him an
extra stop compared to a 100T film,
and, more importantly, an ex¬
tended range of exposure latitude.

sion signal rich

in imagery without

ture of tension.

The latter

intimate
draws the audience into the

important be¬
cause
many in¬

Composition is
as well. Neyman

more

story

was

teriors had

through the eye of the camera, cre¬
ating the illusion that the viewer is
an invisible spectator wandering
through other people's lives.

a

three- to four-

stop difference
between

the

also

brightest and

have a broader range of tonality
than those shot in Russia. The light¬

Neyman often

The Dallas

scenes

darkest
used

ing suggests the random honesty of
documentary, but the approach
can be more accurately described as
an artistic interpretation of a docu¬
mentary. The difference is subtle,
but just enough to let the audience
know that Marina's Story is a movie
and not a mirror image of reality.
One

camera

kitchen of

ever,
so

an

space was

tight that

camera move¬

ment

was

im-

possible.
Neyman shot
the scene by
handholding

continuation of that

Even Neyman
barely tell where his film starts
and the stock footage ends. Similar
minglings of stock footage and new

one

apartment in
Moscow, how¬

voyeuristic visual experiences of
the television age. Neyman shot a

can

in these

setting in the

particularly effective

intercut seamlessly.

aggres¬

sequences.
In

sequence recreates that unforget¬
table scene of Jack Ruby stepping
out of the crowd and shooting
Oswald. Many millions of people
have seen those famous images,
which rank among the most

scene with a
handheld 16mm camera to match
the grainy black & white quality of
the familiar stock footage. He also
matched the density and angles of
shadows so the new and old film

an

areas.

sively mobile

a

the
while

losing details in the shadow areas.
He did so by exposing the negative
explicitly for telecine transfer to a
video signal with a more limited
range of contrast than a film print.
"You must be consistent," he says.
"It makes a big difference if you are

camera

sitting atop a refrigerator. Even in the larger
settings typical of the Russian inte¬
riors, he worked with

a

minimum

number of lights and at relatively
low keylight, mainly augmenting
natural illumination coming from
windows and practicals. "The less

assembled for the

half a stop off."
Most of the Dallas photog¬

light you add, the less trouble you
have with creating unnatural-look¬

Kennedy motorcade in Dallas, and
for scenes of Marina testifying be¬

raphy was done in small rooms,
which left little place to hide lights,

fore the Warren Commission.

but

ing shadows." Also, from a practi¬
cal point of view, the Moscow inte¬
riors were all on the ninth, tenth

American

March 1993

film

32

justify

were

Cinematographer

Neyman still felt it was impor¬
American Cinematographer - March 1993

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