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BOXINGCLEVER
THE GLOVES COME OFF IN MULTI AWARD WINNING THE FIGHTER
ears in the making, The Fighter was actually Yshot in just 33 days on the blue-collar streets of Lowell, Massachusetts where the kernel of
this story about unlikely boxing champ, ‘Irish’ Micky Ward. took place.
Teaming up with star/producer Mark Wahlberg, director David O Russell (Three Kings) summoned cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema NSC FSF from his native Denmark to help recreate a real life drama set in the 90s.Van Hoytema, who had gained worldwide recognition for his work on the Swedish vampire film, Let The Right One In, was naturally excited not so much because he always had a dream to work in Hollywood but rather because it would further his chances to work on “good projects wher- ever they might be set”.
Says van Hoytema: “Getting to do The Fighter was great because it was for a director I respected, someone who’d done a lot of interesting work.”It also wasn’t very Hollywood either; by Tinseltown standards, low-budget – “big-budget, of course, where I come from” - and in terms of location, shot far from the fleshpots of LA in Lowell, the hometown of Ward (Wahlberg) and his crackhead half brother Dickie Eklund (Bale), whose tangled relationship the film also traces.
A multiple winner of awards for co-stars Bale and Melissa Leo, as the boys’ mother, The Fighter also fea- tures Adams and Jack McGee in its talented cast.
“David Russell said he loved Let The Right One In and the fact we did things a bit differently to what you normally see in Hollywood. At the same time, he wasn’t interested in making pretty pictures. With this film, he didn’t want to have a specific ‘language’. He wanted it to be very free, for the camera to float around more with the actors dictating the pace.
“We talked about European films, in particular Lars von Trier’s way of working for which much of the energy comes from the actors you’ve hired. We also discussed the digital route so we could just shoot and shoot. In the end, we settled for 2 perf 35mm and the same Fujifilm stocks I’d used on Let The Right One In.“I really like the stocks. For me, it’s about learning how stock will react when you do certain things, to the point that you can rely on doing
stuff without ever having to worry about it: they’re like a safety net.” In fact, says van Hoytema “it’s not a very visual film; I don’t think it’s going to win any awards for imagery, but I think the approach was absolutely right for the film. For instance, for the boxing sequences, we shot everything on digibeta with operators using the cameras on which they would have shot the original contest footage for HBO. That way added a lot of authenticity.
“You’ve had all those boxing films like Raging Bull, Rocky and Ali – it’s a genre in itself. Our approach was not to try and compete with those films. They shot very close to the fighters, in the ring, often with slo-mo.”
Added van Hoytema, who has since been shooting Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in the UK with his Let The Right One In director Tomas Alfredson: “We decided to keep the camera outside the ring like you’d see watching a boxing match on TV the way HBO did it.“Instead of making a dramatised version of it, we wanted to keep things truthful and realistic.”
QUENTIN FALK
Photos: DP Hoyte van Hoytema NSC FSF; Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale in the ring
“INSTEAD OF MAKING A DRAMATISED VERSION ... WE WANTED TO KEEP THINGS TRUTHFUL AND REALISTIC.”
The Fighter was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA 250T 8553, ETERNA 250D 8563 and ETERNA 500T 8573
FILM STOCK FOR AWARD WINNERS
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