magasa的小站An AFI Seminar with Haskell Wexler, ASC
An American Film Institute Seminar with Haskell Wexler, Asc
Haskell Wexler五次被提名奥斯卡最佳摄影奖，其中两次获奖，代表作有One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)、In the Heat of the Night (1967)、Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)、Coming Home (1978)等。有人有兴趣翻译这篇玩儿吗？
by Howard Schwartz
As perhaps the most important aspect of education for the Fellows in training as film-makers, historians and critics at its Center for Advanced Film Studies, located in Beverly Hills, California, the American Film Institute sponsors conferences and seminars with top technicians and talent of the Hollywood film industry. These men and women, outstanding professionals in their respective arts and crafts of the Cinema, donate generously of their time and expertise in order to pass on to the potential cinema professionals of tomorrow the benefits of their vast and valuable experience.
In keeping with this tradition, Cameraman's Local 659 (IATSE) sponsors a continuing series of seminars with ace cinematographers. These men - both contemporary working Directors of Photography and some of the now-retired "greats" of the past - meet informally with the Fellows at Greystone, the magnificent estate which is the headquarters of the AFI (West), to present valuable information on cinematographic techniques and answer questions posed to them. Very efficiently introducing and moderating each of the individual seminars is "Emmy" Award-winning Director of Photography Howard Schwartz, ASC.
Through a special arrangement with The American Film Institute and Local 659, American Cinematographer will, from time to time, publish excerpted transcripts from these seminars, so that readers of this publication may also receive the benefits of the information conveyed.
The dialogue which follows has been excerpted from the A.F.I, seminar featuring two-time Academy Award-winning Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, ASC. The seminar followed a screening of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, on which he was Director of Photography:
QUESTION: I was wondering why you were credited as Visual Consultant and not Director of Photography on AMERICAN GRAFFITI?
WEXLER: I chose to be credited that way. I sort of helped George Lucas get started in film. I used to race cars, and George was interested in car racing, and I met him there and encouraged him to go to film school. On AMERICAN GRAFFITI they had shot one or two nights, and George felt insecure - unjustifiably - about the direction as much as the filming of it. When he asked me, I told him I would come up and shoot the film for him, but it was to be his film. So I did; I was there except for the first two nights. He had two very competent newsreel guys who were working with him, and I think they could have made the film. Maybe it would not have looked the same way, but they would have done a good job. But he just didn't feel secure. I did help him some with the actors - mostly holding Richard Dreyfuss down from overacting. You understand that the decision about credits was made before it was a big, successful hit picture. When it was finished we thought we had made another fast "B" picture. So I said, "George, just put me down as Visual Consultant." I didn't want to have anything on the screen that might take away from him, just because of our relationship. He said, "Fine, " and then he gave me three-and-a-half percent of the picture - which I did not ask for - and he was very generous with everyone who worked on the film. He gave Verna Fields a new BMW. When the film started to make money he didn't forget the people who had helped him, and he was very generous.
HOWARD SCHWARTZ: That picture was shot in Techniscope, in case you weren't aware of it.
WEXLER: Yes, and everything in the picture was pushed one stop. For the night shooting, of course, it was imperative, but for the dawn sequences and so forth there was some question as to whether we should have, but in order to keep the same granularity, we decided to push that, as well.
QUESTION: Did you use the 5254 negative?
WEXLER: Yes, 5247 wasn't out yet.
SCHWARTZ: Did you use any diffusion on the day stuff?
WEXLER: No, it was really a simple film technically. I mean, it was very, very simple.
QUESTION: I've heard that you used the Eclair a lot in the shooting of that film . . .
WEXLER: The whole picture was shot with Arriflexes and Eclair CM3s. For the sound sequences we used the Techniscope Arri with the Cine-60 blimp. A very lousy set-up, as you probably know.
SCHWARTZ: That's doing it the hard way.
WEXLER: Yes, really tough. And it was a pleasure to use the open camera, the CM3, with which a lot of the car stuff was done. Lines were thrown in later. Like, there's one shot where the Thunderbird is going by and you see her In the back. I just sat in the back seat of the car with the CM3 and panned her over and that was it. And the lenses were Nikon lenses mostly. You notice the flaring of the headlights. I have new Canon aspheric lenses, and when I shot BOUND FOR GLORY, in which there was a lot of night stuff, I noticed that with the Canon aspheric lenses there is no flare around the lights, and at first I thought, "God, that's a fantastic lens. " But it seems that we've sort of grown to accept and like that sort of blossoming effect that we see around lights. Mitchell high-speed lenses will do that more than other lenses.
QUESTION: What do you like to do when you're starting on a picture with a director - in the way of pre-production planning and getting to know each other?
WEXLER: Well, number one is to have as much time as possible. Number two: as much time with the script as possible. I think it's important to see some of the director's other work and for him to see some of your work, and for you to see some film together - mostly so that you can have a frame of reference, because so much movie talk is in abstractions. I've been with certain directors and they would say, "Well, I want this sort of moody. I want it dark, but not contrasty." The words are very difficult to interpret. Different people have different ideas of how to describe looks. It's like music criticism. I don't know if you've ever read music criticism in the newspapers, but they have this weird language. So it's much better to say, "You know the scene in such-and-such a film where she came down the stairs? Well, I really like that, and I think that would fit this part of the script here. What do you think of that?" Then you both have an immediate frame of reference and you can sort of normalize your language. Also, it's important to work with the art director. On BOUND FOR GLORY we had a very good art director, Michael Haller, and we discussed everything. We had wanted to make the film in black-and-white, but that was impossible for economic reasons, because of television, so we wanted to have the film look as black-and-white as possible. What's the easiest way to do that? You can put anything you want in front of the lens. You can flash, you can push, you can fog, you can diffuse, you can net, but if it's out in front of the lens, you're ahead of the game, and that's where the art director comes in handy. So I think it's very important for the art director to be in on discussions with you and the director. Also the wardrobe department, particularly on a period film of the kind that BOUND FOR GLORY is. Then a lot depends on the people themselves. I mean, two people have different ways of communicating, and there really is no set system for a director and cameraman to work and talk together.
QUESTION: Do you try to set up some vision of what the whole thing will look like even before you a start to shoot?
WEXLER: On a location film that's harder to do than on a film where there's a lot of stuff that's built in the studio. On a location film you have your concepts in mind and you look for locations that fit those concepts. You're looking for, let's say, a huge parking lot. That's a perfect place. Then you go along and you come to an empty parking lot that has beautiful yellow lines, a beautiful pattern, and you get up on top of Dodger Stadium and look down, and you say, "It would be great to do this thing with no cars, just use the patterns of the lines and have the figures small on the screen." So then you change your concept; you change this particular thing that you're going to photograph. Just to summarize - if the overall intention is correct, then you will be flexible enough to find out how to visualize it, how best to do it.
QUESTION: I saw ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and it seemed to me that there was a lot of mixing of tungsten and daylight. Am I correct in that assumption?
WEXLER: There was in the part that Bill Butler shot. I didn't shoot the whole picture. In CUCKOO'S NEST the ward was basically lit the way I did it. I had Plexiglass 85s on all the windows and arcs and nine-lights coming in through the windows, and then mostly bounce soft light inside - some with follow-through from a window. We also had tracing paper on the outside. Generally, what I would do is to have follow-through light, because the arc light wouldn't really eat into the room, but by getting lights on the same axis as the window and using tracing paper, we get lights to follow through, so that the effect of the daylight will eat into the room farther. Otherwise, one area would burn up, while in the other we'd have practically zero light. But in answer to your specific question - no, I didn't mix. At least, there was no mixing for the first hour and ten minutes of the film.
QUESTION: And you flashed it?
WEXLER: CUCKOO'S NEST was shot in 5247 - one of the early batches of 5247 - and I didn't like it at all. I was just fighting like hell with that film, because I would get green where I shouldn't get green. I would get a sort of brittle look which I didn't like. I wanted it softer. So I used diffusion, I used nets, I used flashing - I did everything I could to break up the brittleness. I also used very soft light. But the dailies would come in and, with absolutely the same lens stop, the same thing would come back in a variety of colors, and Technicolor admitted at the time that they were having trouble with the film. Since then they have made some advances.
QUESTION: Did you do much testing before you used that stock?
WEXLER: No, I didn't do very much testing. 5247 was out, and we were told that 5254 was going to be extinct. In fact, there was some question as to whether one could get any 5254. As it was, I did call up and get some 54 up to shoot it side-by-side because I was struggling with the 47. But at that time they were going to phase out 54 completely.
QUESTION: I'm curious about MEDIUM COOL. Was that shot pretty much from a script the way most productions are shot, or did a lot of that come out of the process of being where you were at that time?
WEXLER: It came from a script.
QUESTION: You kind of anticipated that there was going to be a riot?
WEXLER: Yes, it was all written and registered with the Writers Guild. In fact, if Mayor Daley had read it, he might have saved himself some trouble. But it was there about four months before.
QUESTION: How did you feel on MEDIUM COOL, directing and photographing it at the same time?
WEXLER: I loved it. I'd like to do it every other week.
QUESTION: It wasn't too much to handle?
WEXLER: Well, it could have been too much to handle; it may have been too much to handle, but I enjoyed it. I mean, sometimes the person who is doing it is the person who is least qualified to answer whether it was too much to handle. I think there are a lot of things to consider when you write it and direct it and shoot it, and sometimes when a scene didn't work I had to think, was it because I didn't write the words correctly? Maybe it was because I didn't know how to get the actors to say the lines correctly or - this was a lesser consideration - maybe if I lighted it a little differently the scene might take on a different meaning. So that problem existed, but mostly because of my insecurities as a writer, rather than as a director or a cameraman.
QUESTION: It was enjoyable?
WEXLER: Oh, yes. I'll tell you, I was looking at GRAFFITI-and thinking back over the different films I've worked on, and that's about the most enjoyable film I ever worked on, just the doing of it. The people were terrific. I was like a zombie on that film because I was working down in Los Angeles during most of the days and then flying up at night and working all night and then coming back, and I was flying back and forth. It was difficult because I would often meet people on the plane who wanted to talk to me, and that time was precious to me because I had to sleep on the plane. So I had to say, "I'm working, and I'd just as soon not talk to you now. Thanks a lot." And I'd close my eyes, and people couldn't comprehend that someone only had that time to sleep, plus the time that my kid drove me back from the airport.
QUESTION: When you're working with someone like George Lucas, a younger director who hasn't had so much experience, how do you work without bruising egos?
WEXLER: Well, there's no system. One of the things that I notice about many of my friends or people who are realty "into films," as they say - I don't like that expression - is that films become their life, and I think that's the worst thing for a filmmaker. If you can very consciously be interested in anything else you will find that it will feed your interest in film; it will make you a live person; it will give you contact with what's going on; it will give you inspiration. If you sort of chase your tail and you go to films and you make films and you look at television and you talk to filmmakers you will lose, you will really lose. You lose as a person, not just as a filmmaker. You lose as a person. I think it's very important.
QUESTION: What is your philosophy in terms of pushing or flashing film?
WEXLER: Well, I generally like to do as little to the film as possible. In BOUND FOR GLORY I flashed everything, and I only pushed some night scenes. The flashing was mostly because I wanted it to look old and I wanted it desaturated, and I worked out a filter combination and a flashing combination which helped desaturate the film. But the latitude of the film was good; the film was very responsive, and the main thing is that to get the most out of the film you have to learn to get the most out of your light. On exteriors you have to be able to look where the sun is and where the light falls, and if you can get the director to do the shot basically shooting in a certain direction, then it's going to look better. So, in general, my philosophy is to do as little as possible.
QUESTION: You mentioned the style and the color treatment of BOUND FOR GLORY, trying to make it look black-and-white, and also that the art director had a lot to do with that. Can you tell me a little about what kinds of things the art director did to get that effect?
WEXLER: Well, starting with the wardrobe department, there were no bright colors; all earth colors: browns, blacks, grays, all subdued earth colors. In fact, they had the whole crew trained; if there was anything bright anywhere, anybody, an electrician, a grip, would come out and cut it out of their ground. Even the back of a stoplight, that kind of thing, so we just fought to keep anything of any bright color value out of the scene.
QUESTION: And you as a photographer, how did you get your feeling for it?
WEXLER: Photographically? Well, see, this is a period film, which is another thing. You're at an advantage, because in a period film everything you photograph is there. I mean, you just don't go out and grab stuff on the street and get bad luck when a bright Thunderbird goes by, because they didn't have Thunderbirds in 1934. It's a funny thing - I have a certain reticence about telling everything that I did. I used frost filters, Mitchell diffusion. I used pantyhose a lot. I went into a store in Stockton, and I said, "I'd like to see some pantyhose." The lady said, "Yes, what size?" I said, "Well, I don't care what size. I just want to sort of look through them." So she told me the price, $2.80. She thought that would probably stop me. (I'm dressed up now; usually I look pretty crummy.) So she thought the price would stop me, but I said, "No." So then she started to show me different kinds of pantyhose, and I would hold them up to the light, and I guess she felt that I had them too close to my nose or something. So, anyway, I found a nice brown pair of pantyhose, and I shot quite a bit through that.
QUESTION: Which of the films you have worked on appealed to you the most in a photographic sense?
WEXLER: I did a film called AMERICA, AMERICA which I haven't seen in a long time but I sort of think that photographically I like that film the best. It was a black-and-white film.
QUESTION: Do you like working in black-and-white?
WEXLER: No, I like color. The first color film I shot was IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, and the good part about that was that I decided I was just going to light it like black-and-white, and it worked out pretty well. I just said to myself, "Forget that you're shooting color; shoot black-and-white." That was before 5254. Color film, as you know, is easier to shoot. You get away with murder with color film, and you couldn't with black-and-white. I mean, with black-and-white you have to depend on separation and gray tones and so forth, which you have to create with lighting. But with color you can almost do anything.
SCHWARTZ: It creates its own separation.
WEXLER: Right.
QUESTION: I was going to ask you to get a little more specific about what you meant when you said, "Light It like black-and-white, as opposed to color."
SCHWARTZ: In effect, you have to make more breaks, and that sort of thing, in black-and-white because it doesn't separate by itself.
Haskell Wexler五次被提名奥斯卡最佳摄影奖，其中两次获奖，代表作有One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)、In the Heat of the Night (1967)、Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)、Coming Home (1978)等。有人有兴趣翻译这篇玩儿吗？
 |
by Howard Schwartz
As perhaps the most important aspect of education for the Fellows in training as film-makers, historians and critics at its Center for Advanced Film Studies, located in Beverly Hills, California, the American Film Institute sponsors conferences and seminars with top technicians and talent of the Hollywood film industry. These men and women, outstanding professionals in their respective arts and crafts of the Cinema, donate generously of their time and expertise in order to pass on to the potential cinema professionals of tomorrow the benefits of their vast and valuable experience.
In keeping with this tradition, Cameraman's Local 659 (IATSE) sponsors a continuing series of seminars with ace cinematographers. These men - both contemporary working Directors of Photography and some of the now-retired "greats" of the past - meet informally with the Fellows at Greystone, the magnificent estate which is the headquarters of the AFI (West), to present valuable information on cinematographic techniques and answer questions posed to them. Very efficiently introducing and moderating each of the individual seminars is "Emmy" Award-winning Director of Photography Howard Schwartz, ASC.
Through a special arrangement with The American Film Institute and Local 659, American Cinematographer will, from time to time, publish excerpted transcripts from these seminars, so that readers of this publication may also receive the benefits of the information conveyed.
The dialogue which follows has been excerpted from the A.F.I, seminar featuring two-time Academy Award-winning Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, ASC. The seminar followed a screening of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, on which he was Director of Photography:
QUESTION: I was wondering why you were credited as Visual Consultant and not Director of Photography on AMERICAN GRAFFITI?
WEXLER: I chose to be credited that way. I sort of helped George Lucas get started in film. I used to race cars, and George was interested in car racing, and I met him there and encouraged him to go to film school. On AMERICAN GRAFFITI they had shot one or two nights, and George felt insecure - unjustifiably - about the direction as much as the filming of it. When he asked me, I told him I would come up and shoot the film for him, but it was to be his film. So I did; I was there except for the first two nights. He had two very competent newsreel guys who were working with him, and I think they could have made the film. Maybe it would not have looked the same way, but they would have done a good job. But he just didn't feel secure. I did help him some with the actors - mostly holding Richard Dreyfuss down from overacting. You understand that the decision about credits was made before it was a big, successful hit picture. When it was finished we thought we had made another fast "B" picture. So I said, "George, just put me down as Visual Consultant." I didn't want to have anything on the screen that might take away from him, just because of our relationship. He said, "Fine, " and then he gave me three-and-a-half percent of the picture - which I did not ask for - and he was very generous with everyone who worked on the film. He gave Verna Fields a new BMW. When the film started to make money he didn't forget the people who had helped him, and he was very generous.
HOWARD SCHWARTZ: That picture was shot in Techniscope, in case you weren't aware of it.
WEXLER: Yes, and everything in the picture was pushed one stop. For the night shooting, of course, it was imperative, but for the dawn sequences and so forth there was some question as to whether we should have, but in order to keep the same granularity, we decided to push that, as well.
QUESTION: Did you use the 5254 negative?
WEXLER: Yes, 5247 wasn't out yet.
SCHWARTZ: Did you use any diffusion on the day stuff?
WEXLER: No, it was really a simple film technically. I mean, it was very, very simple.
QUESTION: I've heard that you used the Eclair a lot in the shooting of that film . . .
WEXLER: The whole picture was shot with Arriflexes and Eclair CM3s. For the sound sequences we used the Techniscope Arri with the Cine-60 blimp. A very lousy set-up, as you probably know.
 |
SCHWARTZ: That's doing it the hard way.
WEXLER: Yes, really tough. And it was a pleasure to use the open camera, the CM3, with which a lot of the car stuff was done. Lines were thrown in later. Like, there's one shot where the Thunderbird is going by and you see her In the back. I just sat in the back seat of the car with the CM3 and panned her over and that was it. And the lenses were Nikon lenses mostly. You notice the flaring of the headlights. I have new Canon aspheric lenses, and when I shot BOUND FOR GLORY, in which there was a lot of night stuff, I noticed that with the Canon aspheric lenses there is no flare around the lights, and at first I thought, "God, that's a fantastic lens. " But it seems that we've sort of grown to accept and like that sort of blossoming effect that we see around lights. Mitchell high-speed lenses will do that more than other lenses.
QUESTION: What do you like to do when you're starting on a picture with a director - in the way of pre-production planning and getting to know each other?
WEXLER: Well, number one is to have as much time as possible. Number two: as much time with the script as possible. I think it's important to see some of the director's other work and for him to see some of your work, and for you to see some film together - mostly so that you can have a frame of reference, because so much movie talk is in abstractions. I've been with certain directors and they would say, "Well, I want this sort of moody. I want it dark, but not contrasty." The words are very difficult to interpret. Different people have different ideas of how to describe looks. It's like music criticism. I don't know if you've ever read music criticism in the newspapers, but they have this weird language. So it's much better to say, "You know the scene in such-and-such a film where she came down the stairs? Well, I really like that, and I think that would fit this part of the script here. What do you think of that?" Then you both have an immediate frame of reference and you can sort of normalize your language. Also, it's important to work with the art director. On BOUND FOR GLORY we had a very good art director, Michael Haller, and we discussed everything. We had wanted to make the film in black-and-white, but that was impossible for economic reasons, because of television, so we wanted to have the film look as black-and-white as possible. What's the easiest way to do that? You can put anything you want in front of the lens. You can flash, you can push, you can fog, you can diffuse, you can net, but if it's out in front of the lens, you're ahead of the game, and that's where the art director comes in handy. So I think it's very important for the art director to be in on discussions with you and the director. Also the wardrobe department, particularly on a period film of the kind that BOUND FOR GLORY is. Then a lot depends on the people themselves. I mean, two people have different ways of communicating, and there really is no set system for a director and cameraman to work and talk together.
QUESTION: Do you try to set up some vision of what the whole thing will look like even before you a start to shoot?
WEXLER: On a location film that's harder to do than on a film where there's a lot of stuff that's built in the studio. On a location film you have your concepts in mind and you look for locations that fit those concepts. You're looking for, let's say, a huge parking lot. That's a perfect place. Then you go along and you come to an empty parking lot that has beautiful yellow lines, a beautiful pattern, and you get up on top of Dodger Stadium and look down, and you say, "It would be great to do this thing with no cars, just use the patterns of the lines and have the figures small on the screen." So then you change your concept; you change this particular thing that you're going to photograph. Just to summarize - if the overall intention is correct, then you will be flexible enough to find out how to visualize it, how best to do it.
QUESTION: I saw ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and it seemed to me that there was a lot of mixing of tungsten and daylight. Am I correct in that assumption?
WEXLER: There was in the part that Bill Butler shot. I didn't shoot the whole picture. In CUCKOO'S NEST the ward was basically lit the way I did it. I had Plexiglass 85s on all the windows and arcs and nine-lights coming in through the windows, and then mostly bounce soft light inside - some with follow-through from a window. We also had tracing paper on the outside. Generally, what I would do is to have follow-through light, because the arc light wouldn't really eat into the room, but by getting lights on the same axis as the window and using tracing paper, we get lights to follow through, so that the effect of the daylight will eat into the room farther. Otherwise, one area would burn up, while in the other we'd have practically zero light. But in answer to your specific question - no, I didn't mix. At least, there was no mixing for the first hour and ten minutes of the film.
QUESTION: And you flashed it?
WEXLER: CUCKOO'S NEST was shot in 5247 - one of the early batches of 5247 - and I didn't like it at all. I was just fighting like hell with that film, because I would get green where I shouldn't get green. I would get a sort of brittle look which I didn't like. I wanted it softer. So I used diffusion, I used nets, I used flashing - I did everything I could to break up the brittleness. I also used very soft light. But the dailies would come in and, with absolutely the same lens stop, the same thing would come back in a variety of colors, and Technicolor admitted at the time that they were having trouble with the film. Since then they have made some advances.
QUESTION: Did you do much testing before you used that stock?
WEXLER: No, I didn't do very much testing. 5247 was out, and we were told that 5254 was going to be extinct. In fact, there was some question as to whether one could get any 5254. As it was, I did call up and get some 54 up to shoot it side-by-side because I was struggling with the 47. But at that time they were going to phase out 54 completely.
QUESTION: I'm curious about MEDIUM COOL. Was that shot pretty much from a script the way most productions are shot, or did a lot of that come out of the process of being where you were at that time?
WEXLER: It came from a script.
QUESTION: You kind of anticipated that there was going to be a riot?
WEXLER: Yes, it was all written and registered with the Writers Guild. In fact, if Mayor Daley had read it, he might have saved himself some trouble. But it was there about four months before.
QUESTION: How did you feel on MEDIUM COOL, directing and photographing it at the same time?
WEXLER: I loved it. I'd like to do it every other week.
QUESTION: It wasn't too much to handle?
WEXLER: Well, it could have been too much to handle; it may have been too much to handle, but I enjoyed it. I mean, sometimes the person who is doing it is the person who is least qualified to answer whether it was too much to handle. I think there are a lot of things to consider when you write it and direct it and shoot it, and sometimes when a scene didn't work I had to think, was it because I didn't write the words correctly? Maybe it was because I didn't know how to get the actors to say the lines correctly or - this was a lesser consideration - maybe if I lighted it a little differently the scene might take on a different meaning. So that problem existed, but mostly because of my insecurities as a writer, rather than as a director or a cameraman.
 |
QUESTION: It was enjoyable?
WEXLER: Oh, yes. I'll tell you, I was looking at GRAFFITI-and thinking back over the different films I've worked on, and that's about the most enjoyable film I ever worked on, just the doing of it. The people were terrific. I was like a zombie on that film because I was working down in Los Angeles during most of the days and then flying up at night and working all night and then coming back, and I was flying back and forth. It was difficult because I would often meet people on the plane who wanted to talk to me, and that time was precious to me because I had to sleep on the plane. So I had to say, "I'm working, and I'd just as soon not talk to you now. Thanks a lot." And I'd close my eyes, and people couldn't comprehend that someone only had that time to sleep, plus the time that my kid drove me back from the airport.
QUESTION: When you're working with someone like George Lucas, a younger director who hasn't had so much experience, how do you work without bruising egos?
WEXLER: Well, there's no system. One of the things that I notice about many of my friends or people who are realty "into films," as they say - I don't like that expression - is that films become their life, and I think that's the worst thing for a filmmaker. If you can very consciously be interested in anything else you will find that it will feed your interest in film; it will make you a live person; it will give you contact with what's going on; it will give you inspiration. If you sort of chase your tail and you go to films and you make films and you look at television and you talk to filmmakers you will lose, you will really lose. You lose as a person, not just as a filmmaker. You lose as a person. I think it's very important.
QUESTION: What is your philosophy in terms of pushing or flashing film?
WEXLER: Well, I generally like to do as little to the film as possible. In BOUND FOR GLORY I flashed everything, and I only pushed some night scenes. The flashing was mostly because I wanted it to look old and I wanted it desaturated, and I worked out a filter combination and a flashing combination which helped desaturate the film. But the latitude of the film was good; the film was very responsive, and the main thing is that to get the most out of the film you have to learn to get the most out of your light. On exteriors you have to be able to look where the sun is and where the light falls, and if you can get the director to do the shot basically shooting in a certain direction, then it's going to look better. So, in general, my philosophy is to do as little as possible.
QUESTION: You mentioned the style and the color treatment of BOUND FOR GLORY, trying to make it look black-and-white, and also that the art director had a lot to do with that. Can you tell me a little about what kinds of things the art director did to get that effect?
WEXLER: Well, starting with the wardrobe department, there were no bright colors; all earth colors: browns, blacks, grays, all subdued earth colors. In fact, they had the whole crew trained; if there was anything bright anywhere, anybody, an electrician, a grip, would come out and cut it out of their ground. Even the back of a stoplight, that kind of thing, so we just fought to keep anything of any bright color value out of the scene.
QUESTION: And you as a photographer, how did you get your feeling for it?
WEXLER: Photographically? Well, see, this is a period film, which is another thing. You're at an advantage, because in a period film everything you photograph is there. I mean, you just don't go out and grab stuff on the street and get bad luck when a bright Thunderbird goes by, because they didn't have Thunderbirds in 1934. It's a funny thing - I have a certain reticence about telling everything that I did. I used frost filters, Mitchell diffusion. I used pantyhose a lot. I went into a store in Stockton, and I said, "I'd like to see some pantyhose." The lady said, "Yes, what size?" I said, "Well, I don't care what size. I just want to sort of look through them." So she told me the price, $2.80. She thought that would probably stop me. (I'm dressed up now; usually I look pretty crummy.) So she thought the price would stop me, but I said, "No." So then she started to show me different kinds of pantyhose, and I would hold them up to the light, and I guess she felt that I had them too close to my nose or something. So, anyway, I found a nice brown pair of pantyhose, and I shot quite a bit through that.
QUESTION: Which of the films you have worked on appealed to you the most in a photographic sense?
WEXLER: I did a film called AMERICA, AMERICA which I haven't seen in a long time but I sort of think that photographically I like that film the best. It was a black-and-white film.
QUESTION: Do you like working in black-and-white?
WEXLER: No, I like color. The first color film I shot was IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, and the good part about that was that I decided I was just going to light it like black-and-white, and it worked out pretty well. I just said to myself, "Forget that you're shooting color; shoot black-and-white." That was before 5254. Color film, as you know, is easier to shoot. You get away with murder with color film, and you couldn't with black-and-white. I mean, with black-and-white you have to depend on separation and gray tones and so forth, which you have to create with lighting. But with color you can almost do anything.
SCHWARTZ: It creates its own separation.
WEXLER: Right.
QUESTION: I was going to ask you to get a little more specific about what you meant when you said, "Light It like black-and-white, as opposed to color."
SCHWARTZ: In effect, you have to make more breaks, and that sort of thing, in black-and-white because it doesn't separate by itself.
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