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ROBERT ALAZRAKI AFC
“For me, telling a story successfully with images depends on how well I work with the director... It is a very intimate relationship, one of the closest you can have.”
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the closest you can have. When I work together on a project with the direc- tor, I can be most creative.
He says that probably the best experience he ever had was with Yves Robert on La Gloire de Mon Père and Le Château de Ma Mère because they worked together for months in advance discussing everything from finding locations, to establishing where scenes should take place, to casting the actors.
“When a director asks more of me, when they demand everything, when they even push you to try some- thing new and different, that is when I can flourish and be most creative. Without those challenges I feel I am not giving all that I can. I feel almost underemployed.”
Alazraki says that while there is some friction in the ongoing discus- sion about the role of the Director of Photography among cinematographers and operators, he loves to operate.
“There are magical moments that occur when you are looking through the lens. Coming from stills, I am attracted to that rectangle and being inside of it, alone. It is a wonderful feel- ing to compose the frame and to move the image with the action. When I put a light somewhere, I know exactly how I will frame it - one millimeter to the right would not mean the same thing.”
“There are times when everything works perfectly. Everyone is in sync. The camera moves perfectly. The actors give the most moving perfor-
mance. Everything just works like never before. It is the culmination of all the planning, preparation, collabo- ration and hard work that one has done up until that point, and suddenly there is this moment of magic. Those moments are very rare and unpre- dictable; you can never tell if or when they will occur.”
These days, Alazraki does work in England from time to time. With direc- tor David Kane he made This Year’s Love in 1998 and returned last year to photograph Born Romantic (set in and around a salsa club), which Alazraki claims to be one of the films he is most proud of.
“Born Romantic was an interest- ing experience because I don’t nor- mally get the chance to push a nega- tive to its limits. We were pushing Fuji’s 500 by two and a half, almost three stops. I rated it at 2000. We were right on the edge, any further and the image would have deteriorat- ed into something strange. The entire
film takes place at night, exteriors and interiors.
“The club was a very important location which had to look different from the rest, so we used Fuji’s 400 stock. It was very soft and not very grainy even when pushed several stops. The black was really beautiful and the overall image wasn’t too contrasty. I really liked this image. I especially liked having two stops more to work with for night.
“The club interiors were very red and soft. It was a completely different look and texture to the night exteriors, and it helped to tell the story. But I was taking a chance with this one.
“The 400 was at that time a com- pletely new stock that nobody had thoroughly tested yet. I was given only one can of film, but I liked it so much, I rang up Fuji Paris, London, Dusseldorf, and Tokyo and asked them to give me all the stock they could for a three week shoot.
“It was a bit risky, but the director liked what I was doing and he backed
me. It really was what we needed and in the end, everything turned out fine.” This also directly led on to his recently being asked by actress Catherine McCormack, who’d appeared in both the Kane comedies, to light her short film directing debut.
Last year Alazraki worked on what has become one of the most suc- cessful box office comedies of all time, La Vérité si je mens 2. Alazraki admits that although the lighting is expected to be good, the priorities on this type of film are to be efficient and to work fast. “Nobody is asking you to be a poet,” he explains.
“What I love about this job is working in completely different worlds, not only in terms of geography - one day in an opera in Turkey, the next in the East End of London – but especially in terms of the people you work with. They come from different worlds that will never normally meet from High Art to low brow comedy.
“What I enjoy perhaps most is continually learning. It is a job where each day you arrive on the set, fire up a lamp, place the camera in a position, choose a lens, and set about lighting a face. I get the greatest thrill from learning all the time.” ■ MADELYN MOST
Born Romantic was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative. This Year’s Love and Le Verite si je mens 2 were partly originated on Fuji
Photos top and above left: scenes from La Vérité si je mens 2; centre: This Year’s Love; right: the salsa club in Born Romantic
EXPOSURE • 24